Andromeda Tales
by SimplyFinn
Summary: Nothing ever happens as and when it should in Andromeda. Non-chronological moments in time for the Pathfinder and Co. Rated for Adult Themes.
1. The First Blood

**Andromeda Tales: The First Blood.**

Scott Ryder took a deep breath and looked up from the basin to face himself in the mirror. Were those lines forming on his brow? Around his eyes dark shadows had formed and his body was in a perpetual state of exhaustion. The last six weeks had more than taken their toll on him, and he was better off physically than mentally, which was really saying something. He exhaled hard and stood up straight, regarding his reflection with some measure of disdain.

"Well, you got any more bright ideas?" he asked himself before heading into the shower.

It wasn't like he hadn't done some solid work of late. Since the discovery of the murderous Kett and the Remnant Vault on Habitat Seven, and everything those discoveries had cost him, Scott had been thrust into the role of Pathfinder and tasked with locating suitable worlds for colonisation.

On Eos he had the pleasure of meeting Peebee amidst some Remnant ruins; he fondly recalled the moment she barrelled into him, pinning him to the ground. It wasn't every day a man had a young Asari scientist straddling his waist, Scott liked to remind himself. Together they had discovered the terraforming reactor buried deep under the desert and activated it. After running for their lives from the lethal machinations of the device they had emerged into something miraculous; where previously the air had been saturated with deadly radiation, it was now almost entirely safe. The radiation barriers surrounding the failed outposts sites were now redundant, and only the Kett presence and Remnant machines posed any threat. Scott had called in the Initiative construction teams and the new scientific outpost of The Initiative was born. They named it Prodromos.

Nakmor Drack, an old Krogan warrior, had joined the crew shortly after; Scott had found him battling Kett forces in the desert and although initially Drack had declined to help the young Pathfinder, he reconsidered when it was pointed out to him that the adventure ahead could help his people, estranged as they were from The Nexus. He joined gladly, and now resided aboard the Tempest, usually keeping to the kitchen. Peebee had asked to tag along and Scott had been more than happy to have her expertise on hand, and so she moved her meagre belongings into the escape pod.

Out in the depths of space, the Tempest had an encounter with a Kett warship. Through quick thinking and some superb piloting from Kello, they escaped into the Scourge, but at a cost; the Tempest was damaged, forcing them to land on a planet called Aya. Aya was the home world of the Angara, a native people of Andromeda who were at war with the Kett. The Angara on Aya had regarded the Pathfinder with distrust; the Kett had been outsiders when they presented themselves to the Angara, they had promised the peaceful, spiritual people the stars and more, but it came with a choice of joining the Kett or death. War had come to the Angara and Scott offered all he could to fight the Kett, but his offer fell on deaf ears. One Angaran, Jaal Ama Darav, saw the sincerity of Ryder and the potential for new allies, and a deal was struck; Jaal would evaluate the Pathfinder and act as a liaison. Jaal offered his rifle to Ryder's cause, and Ryder promised to help the Angara in return.

Ryder took Jaal and his crew to Elaaden, a desert planet of impossibly high sand dunes and insanely deep sink-holes. The sheer heat of the planet made it almost uninhabitable, but that didn't stop the Krogan founding New Tuchanka, their sovereign land in Andromeda, in the relative safety of a cave network following their split from The Initiative. Along with Peebee, they gained access to the Vault and activated the reactor buried there. Stepping back into the bright sun, Scott explained to Jaal how the Remnant vaults could make worlds habitable for both their people, allowing them to not simply coexist, but thrive together. Jaal had been astounded, and resolved to help Ryder with his mission, and in turn Ryder had promised his aid to the Angaran people. The two became fast friends after that.

Now he and his crew were heading back to Eos; word had come down that Prodromos was under near constant attack, and the Pathfinder was needed. Scott hoped there would be fighting, he was _good_ at fighting. In truth, when it came to a firefight Scott knew what he was doing. These days, it was the only time he did. He'd found himself drowning in the role of Pathfinder, so abruptly thrust upon him. He'd not had time to really come to terms with the loss of his father, however estranged they had been, never mind the near-loss of his sister too. The best he could do was make it up as he went, and there were times, too many of late, when he felt utterly lost. All he had were his crew and his mission, and the weight of the entire Initiative on his shoulders.

Scott stepped out of the shower and towelled himself off. He had an hour until touchdown on Eos, and he fancied himself some alone time with his equipment. He pulled on his clothes and made for the armoury.

I He seated himself at the weapons workbench and began disassembling his M-99 Sabre marksman rifle. During his time with the Alliance, Scott had been trained as an Infiltrator, becoming an expert sniper and a cunning solo operator. His Biotic potential had been assessed but never developed during his training, with no explanation given, so Scott took it upon himself to train himself.

"Y'know, if you overclock the inertial displacement circuits that thing wouldn't kick so much." Vetra Nyx said as she walked into the armoury. Vetra was something of a requisitions officer aboard the Tempest. She had joined the Andromeda Initiative with her younger sister, Sid, and had been assigned to the Pathfinder. The young Turian female had more experience with clandestine acquisitions than she would ever tell, making her perfect for the role; if anyone needed anything, they went to Vetra. She managed the ship resources and manned the armoury, which was where she spent most of her time.

"I like the kick. Makes it feel more meaningful, and more of a challenge." Scott said, swapping tools and peering through his visor.

"Yeah and it slows your rate of fire, puts undue stress on you _and_ the rifle." Vetra pointed out.

"Are you worried about the rifle, or the man behind it?" Scott asked with a teasing grin. He got on well with Vetra, he liked the Turian a lot and they had developed a quick, close companionship, bonding over their shared love of shooting things.

"Don't flatter yourself, stud. Do you know how many Sabres we brought from home? I'll give you a clue, it's on that bench." Vetra said, punching Scott in the shoulder.

"We have that in common." Scott said, taking off his visor and looking up at Vetra. "We're each one of a kind. Irreplaceable."

"Trust you to get poetic about your hardware." Vetra scoffed. "So what's up? I only ever find you in here when something's bugging you."

Scott sighed and set down his tools.

"It's nothing, really. It's just... _everything_ , y'know? The whole mission got a lot more complicated real fast. Sometimes I wonder if I'm keeping up." he said, rubbing his temples.

"Aw shit Ryder. You're the Pathfinder! All of _this_ happens at your pace, no faster." Vetra said reassuringly, slightly taken aback by his self-doubt. "And Ryder... _Scott_ , look at me. I won't let you fall behind. Knocking down obstacles, remember? It's what I'm here for."

Scott laughed to himself and stood up, leaning slightly against the workbench.

"I'd like to think there are other reasons." He said with a coy smile. "Other than the mission, I mean."

Vetra gave him an amused smile.

"You're a smooth operator Scott Ryder. It's good to know you're putting up a decent front." Vetra said before turning and heading for the door. Scott watched her walk away before sitting down. She paused at the door and turned back to him.

"You _are_ the mission, Scott." she said, before disappearing into the cargo hold. Scott pulled a pained face as he turned back to his rifle.

"Fuck me, that was corny."

oOo

Cora, Vetra and Ryder disembarked the Tempest and walked towards Prodromos. Since the activation of the Vault, the radiation that had plagued the planet had dropped from lethal to livable. The outpost had flourished from a handful of prefabs to a sprawling campus of laboratories, dormitories, workshops and utility plants. The hours were long and the work hard, but everyone on site went about their duties with enthusiasm.

August Bradley, Mayor of Prodromos, greeted the Pathfinder and team outside his office. He had the bearing of a military officer and ran his settlement like one, with the same discipline and efficiency that years in the Systems Alliance had taught him.

"Pathfinder. Glad you could make it. Lieutenant Harper. Nyx." Bradley said with a stern nod to them all. "Please, come into my office. We have a little situation here."

The team filed into Bradley's second-floor office, overlooking the main "street" of the outpost. Vetra posted herself by the door while Cora and Ryder took the seats. Bradley sat himself at his desk and let out a tired sigh.

"Here's the long and short of it. Kett forces are amassing out in the desert. They've been launching raiding parties at our off-site teams daily and more than a few here at home. Our defense forces are stretched thin and we've lost most of our scouts." Bradley explained as he opened up satellite images of the region on his holographic display.

"Our last reports show Kett forces are fortifying a facility five kilometers into the desert, a power plant from what we can tell. The whole compound is surrounded by kinetic barriers, but a number of generator facilities surrounding the base are unguarded. We believe a small team could knock out the barriers, infiltrate the base and sabotage the regulator systems, resulting in a cascade failure and, hopefully, the destruction of the base. We just don't have the right men for the job."

Ryder poured over the topographic maps and detailed schematics of the facilities in question.

"You've done your homework Bradley. It's a solid plan, we can definitely make it happen. You said you'd taken casualties?" Ryder asked as he transferred all the data to his Omni-tool.

"Fifteen so far. Nine men, six women... _erm_...females. Sorry." Bradley added with a glance to Vetra.

"That's awful. My team and I will deal with this base and I'll have the Nexus send a military contingent to secure Prodromos. This won't happen again, I promise. Anything else I can do while I'm here?" Ryder asked, standing up from his seat.

"Ask around, there's always the usual. I'm just happy to have boots on the ground. Go safe, Pathfinder." Bradley said, shaking Ryder's hand. With that the team left, and Bradley went back to his paperwork with a dejected sigh.

The team climbed into the Nomad and sat for a moment in silence while they each mulled over the situation. Eventually Cora broke the silence.

"We should radio the Nexus for reinforcements. They can be here in a day, we can take out the barriers and send in the troops." she opined, glancing between Ryder and Vetra. Ryder shook his head.

"The Nexus can't spare the men to secure Prodromos _and_ assault a Kett stronghold. It'll be days before the reserves are thawed and ready for action, and we can't wait. We can do this ourselves, us three. We can plant charges at the generator stations then take positions outside the main complex." Ryder said, pulling up a holographic display of the main compound. "I'll take my rifle up high, on this cliff. Cora takes the front door, really draw them in. Vetra, you take my tactical cloak and infiltrate the compound. They'll be so busy with us they won't notice you slip in, sabotage the regulator and slip out again. Then we high tail it and wait for the fireworks."

"Just one issue there, Slick." Vetra said, waving away the hologram. "I've never done an infiltration job. I'd be better off going in the front with Cora, and you take the regulator. We can hold them just as well without sniper support."

"Point taken. Okay, we drop the barriers, you two make some noise at the front and I'll sneak in round the back. Let's go take a look at the generator sites.." Ryder said, turning to the Nomad controls.

The drive took them half an hour out into the mountainous terrain that bordered one edge of a massive desert expanse. Kett and Remnant facilities dotted the landscape, and there in the distance, covered with a shimmering blue bubble of kinetic barrier sat the main complex. Ryder parked the Nomad high on an outcropping and hopped out, retrieving his Widow from the load-out rack. He lay himself down in the dust at the edge of the cliff and brought his rifle to his eye.

Vetra retrieved a spotter's scope and took a position next to Ryder, and the Pathfinder was briefly nostalgic for his Alliance days. Snipers still worked in pairs, that fact had not changed even if the weapons and enemies had.

"Are you seeing what I'm seeing?" Ryder asked, peering down his scope at one small building at the base of a tall atmospheric generator.

"You mean the blood on the steps, that severed arm and some poor Kett's _face_ nailed to the wall? No, I missed that." Vetra said sarcastically.

"Not that I'm complaining, but if there's another operator in the area, we should really find out. Let's head down there and take a look around."

They took the Nomad out into the desert and parked outside the bloodied building. Inside they found two Kett soldiers riddled with bullet holes, one of them missing a face entirely. At the second entrance, Cora discovered another Kett and a dead human clutching a bloodied knife. By the looks of it, they'd fought hand to hand, and neither lived to brag about it.

"There's our operator. Poor guy. I'll give his details to Bradley when we get back." Ryder said, taking a quick scan of the corpse. "Vetra, what's the story with these generators?"

"There are three in the area, including this one. Minimal security, they each feed directly into the barrier generator at the Kett outpost. A small demo-charge on the distribution panel should knock out the feed." Vetra said, turning from the terminal she'd been working at. "These stations have network access to the Kett base, you should take a look."

Ryder went over to the terminal and accessed it through his Omni-tool interface; he found the system to be unlike anything he'd ever encountered before and he'd need some time to work through it.

"Cora, you and Vetra take the Nomad to the remaining generators and rig them to blow. I'll see what I can get out of the system from here." Ryder said to his second-in-command. "Pick me up here when you're done. I'll keep in touch over the radio."

"Are you sure that's a good idea?" Cora asked bluntly. "This location isn't exactly secure."

"Find me one place on the whole damn planet that is." Ryder countered. "I'll be fine here. I need time to go through these systems, maybe find some way of making our job easier, but those other generators aren't going to rig themselves. Take the Nomad and get back here ASAP. Go now."

There was such determined finality to his tone that Cora didn't press the issue further. She and Vetra headed out to the Nomad together and climbed in. Ryder turned back to the console and dove back into the network.

oOo

Vetra could tell something was up with Cora. The woman had been silent from the moment she closed the door of the Nomad, and it was not an easy silence in the least. She practically radiated with anger and frustration.

"So, you don't think much to the plan then?" Vetra asked from the wheel of the Nomad, as she'd elected to drive.

"What gives you that impression?" Cora snapped.

"Your tone just now. And he dismissed your plan earlier, that's gotta sting for an Asari Commando." Vetra pointed out casually.

"His plan is solid, that's not the issue." Cora said, folding her arms across her chest.

"So what is then?" Vetra pressed. They had reached the second generator and, jumping from the Nomad with weapons drawn, found it unmanned.

"It's _him_." Cora said, entering the building ahead of Vetra with her shotgun at the ready.

"You got an issue with _Ryder_?"

"I have an issue with him being reckless and putting himself in danger." Cora clarified.

"He wouldn't be a Ryder if he wasn't. I heard Alec was the same way." Vetra pointed out.

"Alec was calculating, methodical and precise. Sure he could improvise if the situation called for it but he never played against the odds. Scott is just...we've already lost one Pathfinder, we can't loose another." Cora said, setting the demo-charge in the distribution panel.

"Let's move out."

Back in the Nomad Vetra continued to press the issue.

"So I guess you're not thrilled with him sneaking into the Kett base then?" she asked.

"I don't plan on giving the Kett time to notice him. If he wants a distraction, I'll give him one. Like I said, the plan is solid. He's making it up as he goes along, I can tell, but so far so good." Cora said with a sigh.

"So you're pissed that he's not as concerned for his safety as you are, that about it?"

"Yeah, that's basically it I guess."

"Then take my advice." Vetra said with a sideways glance at the Lieutenant. "Stow that baggage away and pull your head out of your ass. Ryder's the boss, and right now we have a job to do. If your head's not in the game you could end up getting him killed. You _know_ this. Deal with it once we're back on the Tempest."

Cora was about to retaliate to Vetra's stern reprimand, when the radio bleeped and Ryder's voice filled the Nomad.

" _Ryder to Nomad, how are my two best girls getting along?"_

Cora rolled her eyes but couldn't help smirking.

"Famously." she said, glancing at her Turian companion. "We're en-route to the last generator, what have you got on your end?"

" _A boat load of good news. I've planted a back-door in their system and have top level remote access. Pick me up when you're ready. Ryder out."_

The radio fell silent once more, leaving only the whine of the Nomads electric motors.

"He's good, you gotta' give him that." Vetra said with a glance to Cora.

"The kid loves his tech, that's for sure. Takes after his dad like that." Cora admitted. The final generator was coming into view, and this one was under guard. Three Kett troopers stood with rifles at the ready outside the building and, judging by their positioning, they'd noticed the Nomad.

" _Ryder to Nomad. I've just intercepted a general alert on the network, everything okay over there?"_

"Harper here, we have Kett active at the last generator. Shouldn't be a problem." Cora said, raising the Nomad's own kinetic barriers. "Get me in close" she added to Vetra.

Vetra pushed the Nomad full tilt towards the generator station and at the last minute, as gunfire peppered the Nomad's shields, turned hard and drifted the Nomad to a stop. Cora sprung out the Nomad and in a second had all three Kett suspended in a biotic field, twenty feet above the ground. They hung there for a few moments with lost expressions on their faces before Cora snapped each of their necks in turn and slammed their bodies into the floor with brutal force. Vetra stepped out of the Nomad and inspected the bodies.

"Feeling better now?" she asked Cora with an amused chuckle.

"Much, thank you. Plant the charge, I'll let Ryder know we're heading back. Oh, and Vetra? Thanks...for the talk. You're right, I _do_ have a job to do." Cora said. Vetra nodded and headed inside, while Cora got back into the Nomad. She couldn't change Ryder, and if he wasn't going to watch his own back, she could more than do it for him. That was her job, after all.

oOo

After his pick-up, Ryder drove the Nomad out of the desert and parked up in a small cave at the base of a cliff. He'd been fizzing with excitement since he hopped into the driver's seat but didn't say a word for the whole ride. Once the parking brake was on, however, his mouth kicked into overdrive.

"Okay, so here's the deal. The back-door I planted gives me total control over their base systems; lighting, power, security systems, you name it. The regulator is a stand-alone system so I still have to go in manually but, and here's a big but, I _can_ cause all kinds of havoc to keep them occupied." Ryder gushed like a giddy child.

"So here's what I'm thinking. We approach after sun-down in the Nomad. I'll disable their perimeter sensors and we'll park the Nomad just off the entrance. I can disable the base power for thirty seconds before the backup comes online, so in that window we blow the generators, disabling the barriers. The generators in the desert are dedicated to the barrier, but they still run through a consolidation array. That array is managed on site and powered from the local generator. Once the power comes back on, the barrier will be down and the Kett will assume a malfunction in the array. I'll take advantage of the blackout to get inside and you two give them something to think about. I'll get in, sabotage the regulator and regroup with you. Then we get the fuck out of there and wait for the big boom. Easy work. What do you think? Vetra?"

Vetra looked from Cora to Ryder, wondering if the quiet Commando was going to question the plan at all. For her own part, Vetra shrugged.

"Should work. I'm game. How about you, Cora" Vetra asked, turning to the presently silent soldier. Cora looked up from her clasped hands and hesitated for a moment before speaking.

"I think...we can simplify the whole thing." She said slowly, choosing her words. "If we're going to assault the base, lets make it an all-out assault."

"I'm listening." Ryder said, sitting back in his chair with a faint smile.

"Okay. We go now, not tonight, while the sun is high. We approach as you said, take out the sensors, kill the alarms and communications. They have turrets, we can use them against the Kett, give them something else to think about. In the confusion Vetra and I storm the compound and secure the open air platforms." Cora explained. Ryder held up his hand suddenly.

"Where am I in all this?" he asked.

"As per your original plan, you're in an over-watch position with your rifle providing cover as we secure the platforms. When we're ready to head inside, you jump-jet down and bring up the rear. We clear the compound and deal with the regulator and then leave. We make it a clean sweep of it and ex-filtrate in the Nomad. No need for diversions or sneaking around."

Ryder sat for a minute and mulled it all over in his mind. A great part of him liked the idea, he really wanted to put his rifle to use, but he wondered why Cora felt a different plan was necessary.

"Pro-con me on the plan." he said eventually.

"It'll be a quicker, more efficient offensive. Easier lines of communication for us, more concentrated firepower; you and I have enough biotic potential to level the whole platform if needed, we both know it, _and_ we don't leave the Kett time to discover the charges on the barrier generators. Downside? I honestly don't see one. I planned dozens of raids like this in the Commandos, the best bet is to keep it simple." Cora explained, leaving out the point that her plan meant she could keep an eye on the Pathfinder.

"Vetra?" Ryder asked the Turian.

"Well you know I hate firefights in the dark. It's a good plan, shock and awe y'know?" Vetra said with a confident grin.

"In that case…" Ryder said with a smile. "...I'll defer to your expertise, Lieutenant. Guns blazing it is. We take an hour here. Cora, I'll transfer the base schematics and systems layout to your Omni-tool. Draw up a detailed plan with contingencies and inform the Tempest. Vetra and I are on weapons detail. Let's make it happen."

While Cora drew up the plan, Ryder hopped out of the Nomad and opened the small weapons and gear store at the rear of the vehicle. Vetra joined him as he began sorting through the gear.

"That was a good thing you just did." Vetra said, picking up a Predator handgun and inspecting it. "Going with her plan and all."

"It's a lot better than what I came up with. It was good of you to get her to speak up, I'm glad you did." Ryder admitted. "Honestly, I was running out of ideas."

"Well I told her to follow your lead, I guess she thinks this way is safer. So, what toys do we have to play with?" Vetra asked with a laugh, turning to the rack of firearms.

"I have my Widow, my Carnifex and I was thinking about taking an Avenger along, just in case. I have Cora's Disciple in here too, she'll want that." Ryder said, pulling the Asari made shotgun from the rack.

"Won't you want something a bit... _lighter_? I know you love that Widow but it _will_ weigh you down. Don't we have a Raptor or something?" Vetra said, taking out the enormous rifle and weighing it in her hands.

"I've trained with rifles like this since I was a kid, and the Kett armour is tough. I want them down in one shot. Oh, you're taking a side-arm too. No arguments." Ryder said, pushing a handgun towards her.

"You know I won't use it." she said pointed out at she holstered the weapon.

"At least if your Cyclone malfunctions again you won't have to run and hide like last week." Ryder said with a smirk. Vetra shook her head in disbelief.

"Fine, I'll take a damned side-arm, but _you_ leave the grenades in the Nomad. Last time you got all bomb-happy and nearly blew us all up!"

Ryder's smirk quickly disappeared and he withdrew his hand from the grenade rack.

"Y'know what? _Fine_. If it gets you to go in properly armed I'll leave my babies at home." he said with a pout. "But when something needs blowing up you better not come crying to me."

"Your _babies?_ You got issues Ryder."

"Yeah I know. Get your gear sorted and run a diagnostic on your Cyclone, just in case. I'll check the rest than we can get to work on our armour."

Cora had laid out the plan for them in intricate details, and Ryder had to admit, he was impressed at the sheer brutal simplicity of it.

"So let me get this straight. You two charge in, I take over-watch. We clear the platforms outside, I join you and we sweep the interior, rig the regulators and then backtrack to ex-filtrate. How, exactly, is that a more detailed plan than forty minutes ago?" Ryder asked Cora with an amused smile.

"The contingencies. Primary exfil' is the front door. Failing that we have two more exits, one to the far right of the compound, and one at the far rear. The only issue with them is they entail a two-hundred foot drop off the cliff. We can fire jump-jets but the landing will still be rough as hell." Cora explained, indicating on the holographic schematics.

"I fell further on Habitat Seven, we can make that if we have to. So this is how the Asari Commandos did it then? Kick the front door in and all?" Ryder asked, closing the hologram.

"Not always no. When the job was simple we went with simple plans; this is a sweep and clear, nothing more." Cora replied. Ryder was satisfied, and anticipation of the fight ahead was making him fidgety.

"Well then, let's go knock some doors down. Cora, you're driving."

oOo

"Okay…" Ryder said as the Nomad crept up the track and he worked at his Omni-tool. "I'm back in the system now. Perimeter sensors are now offline. Cora I'm transferring defence turret control to your Omni-tool. I've set up a loop-back on their communications,they're not calling for help any time soon. Drop me off here, I'll get into position and wait for you."

Out of the Nomad, Ryder scaled the rocky cliff to it's summit in short order, keeping the rock between himself and the Kett base not a hundred yards away. He crept around to the overhand and lay himself down on the rock and brought his Widow up to his eye. The main gate was unguarded, not counting the kinetic barrier which shimmered and hummed like a blue heat-haze in the air. Through the scope of his rifle he watched the Nomad creep towards the gate and park up behind a rocky outcropping, hiding it from view. Cora and Vetra disembarked and moved swiftly into the main trail and towards the main gate.

"Final Comm's check. Sound off." Ryder said over their encrypted channel.

" _Harper, standing by."_

" _Nyx, standing by."_

"Comm's confirmed. Detonating remote charges in five, four, three, two, one, detonating."

A second passed and the blue field that surrounded the base simply vanished. Another second and the low, far off rumble of the exploding demolition charges washed over the area. Through his scope, Ryder watched the patrolling Kett look up in confusion at the sudden loss of shielding, but did not react at all to the echo of the explosion. They continued patrolling as if nothing had happened.

"Shields down, no alarms sounded. Ground Team, move up." Ryder muttered, concentrating half on his own breathing, and half on the Kett forces. Cora and Vetra moved swiftly from their positions, keeping low to the ground and taking cover behind storage crates.

"Cue the turrets, Harper. Hold fast."

The large Kett cannons that perched atop the compounds roof, which had previously been pointing skyward now pivoted their barrels down and each targeted the nearest Kett. Then they fired, and all hell broke loose. The alerted Kett watched as four of their comrades simply fell to the deck, missing a section of their torso. When the turrets turned to locate their next targets, the Kett dived for cover. Their positioning left them exposed to Ryder, and he was ready to get involved.

"Ground Team, move up and engage the Kett. Beginning covering fire."

Cora and Vetra broke cover and launched themselves up the ramp, darting behind machinery and crates as they went, until they go into firing positions and readied their weapons. Their gunshots rang out loud and clear, and more Kett fell, and then came the return fire.

Ryder drew a bead on the furthest Kett he could locate and swiftly deprived him of his cranium. Then his buddy, not two feet away and covered in Kett brain matter, lost his head as well. Ryder swung his rifle to the right and went to work on the Kett peppering Vetra with shots, the boom of his rifle making the confused Kett flinch behind their cover. All the while the cannons blasted the Kett from their holes. Ryder was beginning to think it was all too easy, and his instinct was proven right.

An alarm rang out above the gunfire, and the cannons stopped firing. Cora and Vetra continued firing on the remaining Kett until only stragglers remained. Ryder had an awful feeling in the pit of his stomach, like he was looking at something that simply shouldn't have existed. This was a Kett staging area, it should be manned by _hundreds_ of Kett, not this paltry few.

"Harper, why do I feel this is all too easy?" Ryder asked over the radio.

" _Not a damn clue Ryder. I don't...hold on. Turrets are offline. Ryder what's going on?"_

"Let me check." Ryder said, bringing up his Omni-tool and logging into the Kett network. The data that he found made his heart race.

"Ground Team, we have Kett drop-ships inbound, fifteen seconds out. It's an ambush!"

The howl of the drop-ships engines pervaded the air, growing louder and louder over the persistent alarm. They swooped low overhead, with their side doors open and heavily armed Kett waiting to jump. Ryder readied his rifle again as the ground team fired on the exposed Kett from their cover. Ryder only managed two shots off before the Kett jumped from the drop-ships onto the platforms below, and as he watched them go, he caught sight of Kett forces pouring out of the indoor facilities.

"More Kett from inside! Things just got interesting people, keep your heads down!"

Ryder reloaded his rifle and went back to his work. He prioritised Kett moving into flanking positions and began favouring body-shots. The Kett he fired upon crumpled like paper, or exploded like balloons. It was by no means a clean job, but Ryder was quite content to carry it out.

" _Harper here, moving left. Nyx, take the right platform!"_

" _Roger that. Kett Heavy inbound, Ryder…"_

"I have him, I... _got him_. You're clear, Nyx. Harper, I don't have a line on you…

" _I'm good! Nyx?"_

" _Engaging! These fuckers just keep coming!"_

The battlefield was chaos. Vetra had Kett pinned down under the unending barrage from her assault rifle, while across the way Cora put her biotics to use, lifting Kett into the air for Ryder to dispatch while she ploughed through the ranks with her shotgun. It was going well, and the drop-ships had departed, but the Kett were still coming.

" _I'm pushing up!"_ Vetra informed the team. Ryder helped to clear her path, sending Kett toppling from the platform edge with the impact of his shots.

" _I'm at entry point Alpha! Nyx?!"_ Cora yelled over the gunfire. She had made it along the platform and now hunkered behind cover not ten feet from the facility entrance. Kett no longer poured from it, and only the Kett on the roof above and a handful on Vetra's side remained.

" _Pinned down!"_

"Got you covered Nyx, reload and stand by." Ryder said, loosing off shots at the three ground level Kett, forcing them into cover. "Harper, I'm going to need a starburst on the roof."

" _Barriers up, executing now!"_

From behind her cover, Cora channelled her biotics into a protective secondary shield, bolstering her suits own, slowly fading, barriers. With her defences up, she activated her jump-jet and soared above the battlefield. From above, with the rooftop Kett forces training their rifles on their new target, she launched a biotic shock-wave. The fluctuating mass effect field slammed into the Kett, blasting them from the rooftop.

"Resume fire Nyx, I'm coming down." Ryder said, hauling himself up and holstering his sniper rifle and drawing his Avenger assault rifle in it's place. His landing site was clear, and so he leapt from the overhang and fired his jump-jets. His heart raced as he soared through the air, not from the thrill of the jump but from the anticipation of close quarters combat that lay before him. He hit the deck hard, grateful for the systems of his suit that negated the force on his body, and threw himself into cover beside Vetra as the Kett opened up on him.

"It'd be real great if we had some _grenades_ right about now!" Ryder yelled sarcastically over the gunfire.

" _Harper here, I'm heading in."_

"Hold up, Harper! Oh shit on this. Vetra, covering fire!"

Ryder flung himself out of cover and into the central platform, flanking around the Kett as Vetra fired blind from her position,suppressing the Kett just enough. His assault rifle made short work of their shields and soon their bodies lay in a heap, their blood seeping out across the metal floor. Vetra vaulted over her cover and they both headed after Cora. The door she had entered through had shut itself, and the access panel showed it was locked. When Ryder brought up his Omni-tool to bypass the lock, his blood ran cold.

"Harper, it's a trap! Hidden network resources are coming online... _interior defences..._ oh shit! Cora you have…"

Ryder was cut short by the unmistakable chatter of plasma auto-guns firing. The Kett had hidden turrets inside and now Ryder could only listen as they opened fire on the only person they'd see as a target.

"Harper! Come in Harper, I can't deactivate the turrets from here. Harper, respond!" Ryder yelled into his radio, but no response came.

"Shit! Vetra, we're breaching. Overcharge shields and load EM rounds."

"Done and done." Vetra said, loading the modifier module into her rifle.

"Straight into cover. I'll overload their sensors, you take them out. Forcing the lock now."

Ryder ran the brute-force override application on his Omni-tool and the door sprang open. With another wave of his hand over the glowing Omni-tool interface the device fabricated a tech-mine in his hand, one primed to overload electrical and optical sensors in a ten foot radius. As he slipped through the door he took note of the turrets, two small caliber mounted machine-guns, and launched his mine. The discharge was bright to his eyes, but blinding to the turrets. As per their programming, they shut down to run diagnostics. Vetra entered behind him and opened up with her rifle and perforated them beyond recognition.

Ryder found Cora huddled behind a storage crate, and for the first time since becoming Pathfinder, Scott was afraid for his team-mate. She was in a bad way; she was slumped against the wall, unconscious and badly wounded. The turrets had torn through her barriers, her shields and her armour. The protection had saved most of her from the assault, but there was very little of her right arm left that was recognisable, and her hip and leg had taken a number of hits too. Her suit had gone some way to staunching the bleeding, but she'd still lost a lot.

"Shit. Vetra, do what you can, we're pulling out." Ryder said. Vetra went to Cora's side and administered MediGel to her wounds, but it wouldn't be enough and time was against them. The Kett were sure to be upon them again in mere moments.

"Vetra, call the Nomad. We're leaving."

Vetra went to work on her Omni-tool and Ryder knelt beside his fallen comrade to haul her body over his shoulders. She was by no means a light woman, even without the armour and gear, but Ryder put the strain out of his mind as he made for the door, drawing his pistol with his only free hand. The Nomad had entered the compound but it's way was blocked by cargo crates, forcing Ryder to haul ass down the ramp, hurdling over the bodies that littered the platform.

"Ryder, we have drop-ships inbound!" Vetra yelled, following close behind him.

"Oh fucking _great!_ " Ryder exclaimed. The doors of the Nomad sprung open as he approached, and he slung Cora into the passenger seat and hauled himself in beside her. Vetra leapt into the driver seat and gunned the engines in reverse.

"Well this all went to shit! Fucking hell!" Ryder yelled, punching the Nomad console in anger. He glimpsed the Kett drop-ships deploying Kett forces and felt nothing but hatred for them in that moment. They'd walked right into the ambush, like a bunch of amateurs. It didn't sit well with Ryder, not one bit.

"SAM, are you online yet?" Ryder asked his AI assistant. SAM was invaluable to Ryder but had, for the past eighteen hours, been in diagnostic mode, rendering him mute and functionally useless. It was a stretch, but Ryder was almost desperate. He sighed when no response came, he really needed his invisible friend right now. His blood boiled with rage and he wanted nothing more than to bomb the Kett to hell and piss on their ashes. He'd have to settle for second best, he decided.

"Pull over here. I'm setting the autopilot to get Cora as far from the compound as possible." Ryder said as he worked at the console. "Tempest, this is Pathfinder. We need emergency Med-evac at the Nomad's location, track and retrieve. Nyx and I are returning to the A-O, stand by for further instructions."

" _Tempest here. Understood Pathfinder, we are Oscar Mike. Good hunting."_

"Ryder, what are you thinking?" Vetra asked, pulling the Nomad off the road and reached for her rifle.

"That regulator is still operational, and I want a word with those ass-hats. You up for it?" Ryder asked her with a hard expression. He had Cora's blood on his hands, in more ways than he liked.

"Fuck yes." Vetra said, climbing from the Nomad. Ryder followed suit and triggered the autopilot. As the Nomad rumbled off up the track, Ryder turned to face the Kett compound.

"No matter what, we destroy that regulator. The Kett will pay; today, tomorrow, every day after, they will pay. Are you ready?"

"I'm with you." Vetra said, shouldering her rifle.

"Then let's go make a mess. Move!"

oOo

AN: Okay, confession time. I'm not happy with this chapter, I had to drag it kicking and screaming from my ass.  
This was written mostly as a prologue, and it's a two-parter.

Thank you all for the kind reviews, I hope I've answered some questions. Your input is always appreciated.

Toodles x


	2. As Good As It Gets

**Andromeda Tales: As Good as It Gets.**

Scott Ryders lungs burned, his muscles ached and his heart hammered so hard in his chest he was sure it might give out altogether. Plasma rounds scorched the air around him, blazing a trail mere inches from his head; he'd never been so thankful that the Kett were lousy shots.

There ahead of him, only twenty feet or so, was the cargo bay ramp. Now peppered with plasma burns and hovering a few feet from the ground, the ramp was being covered by Cora and Liam, both toting assault rifles and laying down a curtain of fire at the pursuing Kett. Scott had never seen anything so beautiful.

Searing pain in his ribs briefly reminded him of the close call he'd suffered two miles back into the desert, he'd have to get that looked at. To his left he noticed Vetra keeping pace, looking just as worse for wear, firing her weapon wildly behind her every few paces. Later he'd surely come up with some whimsical and poetic way of describing just how mind-bendingly awesome she had been, but presently he only cared to get her, and himself, up that ramp.

The cargo bay was at their feet, Scott flung himself up the ramp and onto his back. As he shouldered his sniper rifle and took aim from betwixt his legs, he heard Cora shouting into the comm's. The ship began to ascend and Scott fired off round after round into the approaching horde of Kett, adding steadily to the alarming number of corpses that lay strewn across the sands.

The Kett were now far below and strong arms hooked Scott under his shoulders and pulled him roughly up the ramp and into the cargo bay. Now he felt the flood; the white hot, searing charge of adrenaline that had kept his legs in motion and his brain in gear as near-certain death rained down around him, but now with nothing to do, it all went to his head and filled him with psychotic fury.

He hauled himself to his feet and ripped the helmet from his head, feeling suffocated by it. Hands came to steady him but he batted them away, discarding his weapons entirely and stalking off towards the showers. Once away from prying eyes he slammed his fist into the wall, letting out a primal roar of pent up stress. The fire of battle, the two-mile death defying sprint, the stark truth that had been _millimeters_ from death more times in the last four hours than in his entire life. He knew this was the feeling Krogan warriors lived for, and it _was_ intoxicating, but just then Scott only wanted to calm his heart and be rid of his armour and the blood that was caked to it.

As he tore the armour and undersuit from himself, the door slid open and Vetra stalked in. She looked just as bad as him; a graze to her head, along the soft skin around the right side, and a scorch mark to her upper left leg. Her chest was heaving just as much as his was, they had that in common. She planted a plastic tub of _something_ on the counter and gave him a quick nod.

"Shower now. Lexi later." she said, unzipping her suit and pulling off the armoured components.

Scott turned on the water and felt the soothing waters rain down on him from above. He pressed his forehead to the cool ceramic wall and now tried to calm his heart. Everything was slowing down, the rage subsided and the searing fire in his chest faded to a soothing warmth that spread through him. He turned his face slightly to glance across the divider at Vetra. She too had found comfort in the ceramic tile wall; more for support, he reasoned, than for it's comforting temperature as she wrestled with her suit. He pushed himself from the wall and moved to help her, pulling pieces of armour away and discarding them as she pulled the tight suit from herself. Turian physiology was a mystery to Scott, he just knew that they fought like demons and didn't bother with pretence. That was all fine by him.

"Spirits be fucked!" Vetra hissed as the water cascaded down onto her and over her clotting wounds. For all their natural armoured plates, Turians still had plenty of soft flesh exposed to the elements, or in this case, plasma weaponry.

"I hear that." Scott breathed, moving into his own cubicle.

"Damn, Ryder! We just... _shit!_ " she exclaimed, punching the wall. It was all coming down on her now.

"I know, right?!" Scott laughed, which quickly became a hiss as the wound in his side flared with pain.

"You're hurt. Shit, let me see." Vetra said, moving into his stall. Before he could object, her taloned hands were turning him, prodding and inspecting him. She ran a finger over the split skin along his ribs and the scorched burns surrounding it. Scott groaned a little; he'd need to have that looked at by someone _without_ claws. While she inspected him, he tilted her head with his hands to get a closer look at the near identical wound around the side of her head.

"They got you good…" he muttered, probing the soft flesh around the wound gently. A small gasp of discomfort escaped her. Their inspection of each other had brought them into such close proximity that they were essentially holding each other up, and Scott could feel her breath on his neck, hot through the steam that pervaded the air.

"Shit, Ryder...we barely made it…" Vetra said between controlled breaths. Her arms encircled his back and pulled him to her chest. His hands fell from her head, down her back to her hips, and pulled her flush to him.

Later, Ryder would wonder what possessed him, or indeed her. Something clicked onto auto-pilot for them both; after moments of clinging together and feeling the odd sense of security from the other, they each let their hands begin exploring the other again. Scott slipped a hand behind her head again and held her close, Vetra for her part opting to lay her head on his shoulder and nuzzle his neck.

While his hand explored the soft skin and smooth, hard plates that dotted it, her own fingers pressed into the taut muscles of his back. She explored the landscape of his spine, moving slowly down to his hips, much as he'd held her. She slipped one hand between them to explore his stomach, now moving her fingers slowly upward to his chest.

Vetra was intoxicated by him; the full fury of his soul exposed to her on the battlefield hours before, and now the feel of his muscles under her hands and the hot, bloodied smell of him, she could only want for but one thing. She cradled his head just as he held hers and traced a long, slow trail with her tongue. Up his neck, over his jaw and ending at his earlobe. She nibbled his ear playfully, enjoying the tensing of his body in response, and the small gasp that stuck in his throat.

Scott, having already abandoned all rational thought, reacted with vigour. He lifter her by one leg, hooking it around his waist and pinned her into the corner of the showers, her long, flexible legs allowing he to stand quite comfortably on one while pulling him closer still with the other. Scott latched onto her neck with his mouth, kissing and biting as his passions took him.

The friction between the two bodies soon found them both gasping for breath, between murmuring unfathomable things into each others skin and clumsy attempts at kissing. Vetra soon grew impatient, and reached down between them, taking his matters into her own hands; she relished the noise it pulled from him, and the expectant stare, the building quiver of anticipation as she slowly tilted her hips against him until, with a desperate sigh, she lowered herself onto him.

Vetra would later admit they made a pretty good team; she had height and flexibility, while he brought strength and stamina to the party.

It didn't take long at all for them both to feel their end drawing close. They rocked against each other with a desperate, impassioned tempo, building to a crescendo which finally, to their vocal approval, broke in violent glory. Expletives were uttered, and all frantic movement subsided to a painfully slow, controlled rhythm. In the final moments, Scott had pressed Vetra hard into the wall, pinning her against it and holding her aloft by her rear, allowing her to lock both her legs around him and squeeze him in as deep as she could. In that moment, every millimeter of him mattered, right up until the point where she stopped thinking altogether.

Just as quickly as the wave had crashed over them, the tides of fog in their minds receded, and reality came back to them. For Vetra it came crashing back to her all too suddenly, and she gingerly untangled herself from Ryder. She slipped passed him, taking advantage of his lingering delirium, and quickly slipped on her bodysuit. Grabbing up her things, she departed the showers with haste, not even pausing to look back. Scott was left to blink dumbly through the fading steam and wonder just what the _fuck_ , beyond the obvious, had just happened.

The question would wait, as presently he staggered, towel held around his waist, out of the showers and into his quarters. He collapsed into his bed and fell easily to sleep.

Scott came too suddenly, finding himself peering up into a bright light and a stern blue face looming over him. He'd only ever seen Lexi pull that face once before, and he suddenly wished he'd stayed asleep.

"What, Mister Ryder, were you _fucking_ thinking? Or did you skip that part entirely as per usual?!" Lexi demanded of him, face swelling from pure outrage.

"Well you know I like to stay true to form…" Scott offered, propping himself up on his elbows.

"Well, you're at the top of your game this time! That _graze_ you mentioned happened to develop complications while you were passed out in your room. You've been in the med-bay for eighteen hours. How in the world did you get Turian blood in an open wound, Scott?"

Scotts previous bout of consciousness, if he could call it that, came flooding back to him in vivid detail. Vetras legs, strong and supple, clenched tightly around him, squeezing him until he popped like warm champagne. The deep gash on her upper leg must have bled into him a little.

"Got caught in a foxhole with Vetra, she was bleeding pretty badly. It was messy out there." He lied quickly. It sounded pretty convincing.

"I see. Well you suffered an acute allergic reaction; I'm sure I don't need to educate you on the biological incompatibility between Humans and Turians. I've treated the damaged tissue and I'm issuing you a bottle of antihistamines, just in case." Lexi said, handing him a small bottle of pills from her cabinet. "These can be used as a remedial treatment, should the same happen again, or they may be taken as a precaution to counter the allergic reaction before it begins. Beyond that, you are fit for duty. Now go eat something, a lot of something, and perhaps take it easy for a few hours."

Scott nodded and took the bottle, suspecting that the fair Doctor was implying something he wasn't sure he liked, but he wasn't about to open that can of worms. He was one foot out the door when she called after him.

"Interesting story for you Scott. Once Humans and Turians got on friendly terms with each other, a multi-species pharmaceutical company developed a medication to treat exposure to incompatible DNA. You're holding a bottle of those exact same pills right now. It's funny because, when the medication was made available, they weren't sold as antihistamines. They went on sale as contraceptives. Food for thought."

Oh yes, he was screwed. Well and proper.

oOo

Scott did as he was instructed and went to the mess to fixed himself a huge helping of pasta. They still had a few hours to kill while scans were taken of the local system, then a six hour trip to the Nexus. Normally Scott would make the rounds, tour the ship, and check in with everyone, but something had him bothered. Vetra had been uncharacteristically distracted whenever he was in the same room as her; she didn't even look up when he entered her room off the cargo bay.

"What do you want Ryder?" she asked, taking up a new tool to probe around the guts of the rifle she was working on.

"Uh...just checking in. Everything okay with you?" Scott asked, stepping closer to inspect the weapon. It was his own Widowmaker. His dad had taught him to shoot with that rifle, it dislocated his shoulder when he was seven due to faulty recoil dampeners. It still kicked like a mule.

"Everything apart from the interruption. These weapons won't maintain themselves, so if you don't mind…" Vetra said cooly. It wasn't like her to be curt with him, or anyone for that matter.

"Something's bothering you, and I'm a lot of things but blind isn't one of them." Scott said firmly. "Listen, Vetra...if you want to talk…"

"I don't need to talk about it. I really don't. How about you?" she asked him, finally looking him in the eye. Hers were cold, and entirely contemptuous. Scott could take a hint.

"Don't see that we've got much to talk about. I'll leave you too it."

And so he did. It didn't matter that their encounter in the showers had rocked his world to the foundations, or that watching her hurry away from him had hurt more than he'd care to admit. In his old fashioned ways he'd never had sex with anyone just for the sake of it, it was _always_ deeper than that, it _always_ meant something. Not to her, so it seemed.

oOo

Scott went about the rest of his day waiting for it to end, and contemplating just how long this mistake would be haunting him. Finally, with all his duties performed and the evening his own, he changed into some lounge-wear, put some music on and settle into his quarters for the evening. He was half-way into an interesting article on personal cloaking devices when his doorbell sounded.

"It's open!" Scott yelled from his bed, where the arranging of pillows had made up for the lack of a decent armchair. The door slid open and Vetra stalked in. He could tell right away from her body language, the shit was hitting the fan.

"Okay, I need to talk about it." she announced, sounding fully frustrated.

"Vetra, that rifle has been busted for years, you're wasting your time on…"

"Not the fucking rifle, Scott." Vetra snapped. He did so love to play with people but sense told him now was not the time.

"Oh okay. What's up?" Scott asked, putting aside his magazine and sitting upright.

"We had sex." Vetra stated. No yelling, no inflection of any sort, just a statement.

Scott waited a moment before responding.

"Oh...is _that_ what we were doing? I did wonder, y'know…"

"Aw fuck, Scott can you please just be an adult…"

"...I mean I meant to ask you about it…"

"This was a bad idea."

"...once there was enough blood in my brain to _think_ but you'd already _left_ so…

"Yeah, about that...listen I…"

"I _understand_ , Vetra." Scott said firmly, bringing their growing argument to a sudden halt. "You don't have to explain anything to me. Shower sex make a fine ending to a day of mass murder. I _get_ it, okay? It was just sex."

Vetra stood and processed what Ryder had just said to her, and more importantly, what his body and face had said. He was pissed off, there could be no doubt. He spat his words like they were foul to him, and now he appeared restless, like something was gnawing away at him, and she knew exactly what it was.

"I shouldn't have run out on you like that." She said, moving to the edge of his bed and perching on it. It didn't seem right to discuss this from across the room.

"Yeah, that was a dick move, no pun intended." Scott agreed. "That said, I understand wanting to run away from a mistake."

"What we did wasn't a mistake Scott, and if you say that again I'll shoot you myself." Vetra corrected him swiftly. She could practically see the logic in his head moving from one explanation to another.

"Okay...not a mistake just...what, really bad? I mean, I know I'm sorta out of practice but…" Scott mumbled, looking even more put out. It took Vetra a moment to figure out what he meant.

"What? No, Scott, you weren't bad at all. Quite the opposite in fact."

"Say what?" Scott asked dumbfounded. Vetra sighed, inwardly despairing the male ego.

"What we did...what _you_ did...it was the best I've ever had." Vetra simply stated. Scott, for his part, was bowled over.

"Gotta love that Turian honesty. Are you serious?"

Vetra scooted closer to him on the bed and shrugged her shoulders.

"Of course. That was the best sex I've ever had, no shame in admitting it."

"And you cut and run so fast because…?" Scott pressed.

"Because, you idiot, I'd just had the most mind-blowing sex of my life with a _Human_ , not a Turian, and I didn't know what to do with that. I freaked. I ran away. I'm really sorry."

Scott took a deep breath and tried to process. Honestly, at times he envied SAM his near limitless processing power.

"So it's a...species thing. I get it. I'm sorry I can't be more bumpy for you." he said with a sad smile.

"Scott...I need you to understand me, okay?" Vetra asked, moving closer to him and taking his hands into her lap. "What you... _did_...what you made me feel...no man, Turian or otherwise, has ever come close. I was... _moved_. I ran because I didn't know what that said about _me,_ and I've been trying to work it out. In the most literal sense, it's not a _you_ thing. It's a me thing. I have no regrets, and I'm sorry I've taken my problems out on you."

Scott nodded in understanding, and he did, really. He remembered the state his sister had been in, so many years ago, sneaking into the house at four in the morning. Scott had stayed up just to catch her in the act, asked her through the darkness of the house what his name was. She'd replied " _Jasmine"_ before silently sprinting to her room, leaving Scott to pick up his jaw. Then three weeks of trouble for them both while she tried to come to terms with her sexuality and he came to terms with the prospect his sister bringing home more beautiful women than him. This was much the same.

"I accept your apology. I um...it was great for me too, by the way. You were...Human women can't bend like that, at least, not many. Just saying...I was right there with you." Scott mumbled. He was never great with meaningful words, especially when discussing matters close to his heart. Vetra cocked her head slightly and gave him a quizzical look. Before he could utter another word she reached to his bedside table and tapped the controls there, locking the door with one, and dimming the lights with another. With privacy secured, she pushed him gently down onto his bed and crawled over him, resting her forehead against his gently.

Scott was going to say something, but she covered his mouth with her hand and spoke first.

"I'm reliably informed that you're not the type of man who gives himself to others as... _freely_...as some might. A gentleman, I think you call it. Or a romantic. Either way, I just wanted you to know, while we're circling around the topic...working with you, fighting alongside you and... _being_ with you, if just the once, it means more to me than I can say. _You_ mean more…"

"So, you're spending the night then, right?" Scott interrupted her with a cheeky grin. Vetra sighed in response

"I was trying to open up there, you get that right? I'm not exactly good at this…"

"Oh no! No, no, no I get that, I do!" Scott scrambled to explain, taking the opportunity to slide one hand around her waist and the other behind her neck. "And really, you should know I'm crazy about you, Vetra. I seriously am. It's just I'm really tired now and if I have the option to fall asleep with you here then...I'll take it. Is that an option?"

Vetra smiled, in the way that Turians did that apparently no Human ever recognised, and gently nipped at his jaw by way of an answer.

"You know I'm not exactly built for comfort, right?" she asked, sitting up and looking down at his strange, fleshy and oddly attractive body. She liked Humans, the universe would learn to deal with it.

"I'll get by. Now be a good girl; hop off, strip off and snuggle in." Scott said, climbing under his duvet and holding it open for her. He made no effort to turn away while she took off her clothes, and the moment she was beside him he pulled her body flush to his. True, Turians were hard and lumpy and downright _sharp_ in places, but oddly, never Vetra. She was just right.

Vetra delighted in feeling his arms around her again, and could hardly wait to experience waking up beside this funny, short alien she was so attached too.

"So...we'll have more life changing sex in the morning, right?" Vetra teased, licking the tip of Scott's nose playfully.

"Oh yeah, that's a given. Can I sleep now?" He replied with a chuckle.

"Whatever you need, Scott." Vetra said, settling down for the night.

Scott lay still for a few moments, then tightened his hold on her ever so slightly, and tangled his legs up in hers.

"I've already got that."

oOo


	3. Some Sweet Nothings

**Andromeda Tales: Some Sweet Nothings.**

Vetra Nyx lay propped up in bed, half tangled in the dark red sheets, skimming through a short novel on her data-pad. Since she and Ryder had started unofficially dating, she'd been spending more and more of her downtime in Ryder's quarters, and whenever they could manage it, her nights too.

Presently Vetra looked around for her to-be-announced boyfriend, and caught sight of the back of his head bobbing up and down over the edge of the bed. She shifted over and found him still doing his press-ups; he'd been at it for ten minutes already, and he never went a day without completing his set.

From her seat above him, Vetra enjoyed a stimulating view of her Pathfinder's tight shoulders, and back muscles that tapered down to his waist. He was covered in a thin film of sweat and his arms were shaking slightly from the exertion; Vetra could watch him all day.

"How long until we reach Eos?" Scott asked as he finished his set and hauled himself to his feet.

"Another three hours. Liam was looking for you, by the way. Something about his movie night I think, he was sorta' vague."

Scott downed a large glass of water from his nightstand and stretched his arms and chest out. Vetra could swear sometimes he flexed and stretched just like that to tease her; she'd made no secret of her admiration for his body since they'd gotten together, for reasons she'd only ever admit to him in the dead of night, when he was entirely at her mercy.

"And when was this?" Scott asked, checking his watch.

"Four hours ago." Vetra answered, kicking away the sheets she'd tangled herself in and scooting down the bed to stretch out. She could be a tease too. "You were otherwise engaged at the time…"

"I've still got jaw-ache, thanks. I better go see what he wants. _That's_ not going to work, by the way." Scott said, raising an eyebrow at her.

"What do you mean, Scott?" Vetra asked with a coy smirk. She made a show for stretching her arms over her head and arching her back slightly. She'd seen videos and images of human women posing like this while she'd been researching...well, _Scott_.

It was just a shame he knew her so well, and had a quantum of self restraint.

"That pose only works when you have tits, and Turians don't have them. Nice try." He said with a chuckle.

"You'd prefer me with two huge flesh-sacks hanging from my chest then?" Vetra asked, cupping a pair of comically large imaginary breasts before her.

"Erm...not _that_ big, and definitely not on you." Scott said, pulling on some clothes. "Would you prefer me covered in chitin, all lumpy and rough at the edges?"

"I'd prefer you came back to bed, chitin or no. Sure I can't tempt you?" Vetra asked, extending her hand to him. He took it and perched on the bed beside her. He placed a soft kiss on the inside of her wrist and gave her a smile.

"I'll be back in an hour. Wait for me and I promise I'll spend the rest of the trip right here with you. Deal?"

"Spirits, you're a smooth one, Ryder." Vetra said, tracing a sharp talon ever-so gently through his hair. He was often amazed at how gentle she could be. "Okay, go quickly before I change my mind. Hurry back, lover."

"Always." Scott promised, kissing her palm once for good measure and swiftly departing the room.

Vetra secretly hated watching him go. She was starting to feel her age; while she was in fact only an Earth year or two older than Scott, she was nearing the point when most Turians settle down with one partner and start a family. Her mildly promiscuous days were far behind her, and they'd been fun, but never more than that. Scott was infinitesimally more, in every way.

It was safe to say, in Human terms, she'd fallen in love with him.

" _Like it was ever a choice."_ Vetra thought to herself with a smile. She'd take a shower, run back to her quarters for some things, then wait for him, just as he asked.

" _I'd do anything that man asks."_ She mused as she headed for the shower.

oOo

"So let me get this right, you want to host a movie night in the _cargo bay?_ " Scott asked, scratching his head. Liam was practically hopping with excitement at the idea.

"Yeah! We can move the Nomad to the back of the bay, drag out my sofa, and the kitchen is right _there_ so snacks are bound to be plentiful." Liam gushed, gesturing around the cargo bay as he went on.

"Your sofa only seats two, numb-nuts." Scott pointed out.

"I have a container of pillows I scavenged. Don't know who needed seventy Krogan pillows but, here's the point, we have a _Nomad_. Nomad plus pillows and what do we have?" Liam asked in his slightly condescending way that usually came off as charming. Usually.

"Seating arrangements for all. Okay, I'm down with that. Just make sure the parking brake is on before the film starts. Anything else?" Scott asked. Liam gave him an apologetic smile.

"Yeah, a few issues I need to run by you regarding the Outposts. Beer?"

Scott sighed and checked his watch before nodding.

"To the couch, then."

oOo

Doctor Lexi T'Perro was, at least in her mind, an entirely professional and rational medical professional. She'd treated all sorts of injuries and illnesses afflicting or inflicted to all sorts of people from all walks of life. Species, race, age, sex, it made no odds to her; she treated all with the same professional detachment and exemplary skill.

Through much of her training and, indeed, working life, she had shunned social skills and "bedside manner" in favour of technical brilliance.

" _If I can fix them, they won't need me to coddle them."_ She had said to a teacher once, so very long ago. It stuck with her, and she reminded herself of it every day. It was her mantra.

And yet there was one member amongst the crew who had her feeling entirely upside down. Professionalism aside, she was still an Asari in the prime of her life, and like all Asari, she had her urges. A somewhat recent break-up from a long term partner had left her disillusioned with romance; she remembered telling Ryder this after politely turning down his offer of dinner. Normally she'd have counted herself lucky to be wined and dined by such a strapping example of _homo sapien_ , but she simply didn't feel anything there. Not until Nakmor Drack came on-board.

" _Oh wonderful. Here we go again."_ Lexi thought to herself, sat in her office chair as she poured over medical reports and test results. Her mind had wandered to Drack for a brief moment and suddenly all through of work deserted her. It was easiest, she had discovered, to simply indulge herself for a few minutes, and then force herself back to work.

Drack was indeed a mystery, and one she would love to spend an age or two solving, so long was his life and his well of experience. Lexi imagined sitting up all night, laying in his lap, while he regaled her with stories of epic battles he'd won and impossible worlds he'd seen. He was a marvelous living relic from a bygone age, but where he would see himself as such and take from it a feeling of redundancy, she saw him as something to be treasured and cared for, to be learned from and aspired to. She'd always been attracted to older males, in any case.

He was so... _blunt_. That was something that she often found herself at odds with; where she was reserved and calculated when conversing with others, at least under normal circumstances, Drack would just let it all out. He shocked her, on occasion, with his brutally honest comments and musings. She found him utterly rough and crude and damn her she _liked_ it.

It didn't help that physically he was just as impressive. He was a beast of a Krogan, made strong and hard by centuries of combat and hardship. Even though, sadly, age was taking it's toll on him, and his prosthetics could only carry him so far, he was still a mightily impressive specimen.

Lexi forced herself from her fantasy and back to her work. Drack would be round for a routine check-up in a few days, she would have that to look forward too. Presently she was due for some shore leave on Eos, once they landed, and until then had scan results from Liam, Vetra and Gil to go over.

"Oh Vetra...you're going to wear the poor boy out." Lexi said to herself with a smile. Nothing got by the resident doctor, and Lexi didn't need to see heightened hormonal levels or traces of Human DNA within her system to clue her into Vetras nightly activities. She'd sussed it out the moment she'd seen Vetra walk past her office window some weeks ago; sometimes such acute perception was a curse.

oOo

After a smooth landing on Eos, the crew disembarked and went about their own business. Scott and Liam went off with Cora to attend to issues that needed resolving, while Lexi headed for the outpost science station. Drack, in his wisdom, had decided to walk off into the desert for a few hours.

"I'm gonna go find some raiders to play with." he'd called over his shoulder with a sadistic grin, hoisting his obscenely large shotgun onto his back.

Lexi enjoyed a wonderful hour scouring through all the latest research projects and discoveries from the outpost. She was particularly enthralled with the ongoing Kett studies and, oddly, the geology surveys. Although it was well outside her area of expertise, Lexi always found _data_ to be relaxing; there was something about the way it all fit together, the order rising from the chaos of the unknown, it put everything in perspective for her. While she immersed her conscious self in science, her subconscious went to work freeing itself of worries and stress, embracing the calm waters of eternity.

As all good things must, Lexi's immersion came to an end when an engineer burst into the science station, gasping for breath.

"Just...a head's up...Doctor!" he wheezed. The man clearly needed to stop smoking.

"Take a moment, catch your breath, then tell me what the problem is." Lexi said, putting down her data-pad. The man gave her a grubby thumbs-up as he stood there, bent at the waist, panting like a dog.

"There is... _ahem_...sorry, there's a Krogan just wandered into the bar, totin' a scatter-gun bigger than a cow." The man said in a thick Texan accent. "Fella's bloodied up pretty bad, I think he's one of yours."

"Drack." Lexi sighed in despair. She gathered up her things and moved to follow the engineer out into the road.

"He uh...insisted on having a drink. A whole bottle. Ordered our hardest stuff...basically paint-thinner...I figured he might need some seein' to."

"Thanks you for bringing it to my attention, Mister…?"

"Oh it's Jake. Jake Sunders, at your service ma'am."

"Thank you Jake. I'll take it from here."

Jake Sunders tipped his hat to Lexi and wandered back to his work, taking a short white stick from his pocket as he went. Lexi shook her head to herself and entered the bar.

Drack was indeed in residence, almost crushing a bar stool with his enormous weight, and gulping from a glass bottle now nearly drained of a pale yellow liquid. He was on his third bottle.

"Oh hay, Doctor!" Drack called as she entered the small bar, waving with his massive hand, sending drops of blood hurtling to the floor and bar.

"Drack. You are... _injured_...to put it mildly. Can you walk?" Lexi asked as she approached him.

"I'm fine. Got into a pinch...stuck between some Kett and those _robot_ things Peebee loves so much. You should see the other guys, ha!" Drack let out a booming laugh which, normally, Lexi would have quite enjoyed. He had an infectious laugh.

He also had a sucking chest wound.

"Drack, those aren't _bullets_ in your chest, they're cannon shells! You need medical attention right now." Lexi stated firmly.

"What I _need_ , girl, is to have another drink and for you to have one with me. Here, come into the chapel." Dreck said, patting the stool beside him.

The problem with Krogen is,once they've set their mind on something, they follow through; everyone else be damned, they follow through. So it was with some reluctance that Lexi mounted the stool and accepted a tumbler of whatever foul substance Drack was drinking. Knocking it back she briefly wondered if it would serve as an antiseptic agent, then she discovered she could no longer feel her tongue. She calmly took the bottle from Drack and sniffed it.

"That's my girl!" Drack grunted with a lopsided grin. His grin soon vanished when Lexi upended the bottle over his torso, dousing the worst of his wounds in the alcohol.

"What the...OH! Oooooooooo…. _that'll wake you up!_ " Dreck gasped, gripping the bar hard enough to splinter it, eyes and face bulging in alarm.

"You. On the ship! Right now!" Lexi demanded, all but stamping her foot. The slightly-drunk Krogan shook his head and hoisted himself from his stool, grabbing up his shotgun as he stomped off towards the door. Lexi glanced around at the other patrons, all of whom were staring at the commotion, before hopping briskly off her seat and departing.

oOo

"I hope you know you're making it very hard for me to enjoy my shore leave." Lexi said calmly as she pulled on her surgical gloves. "Can you strip or do I need to cut you out?"

"I've got this, Doc. Lookin' to avoid blades at the moment. The whole lot?" Dreck asked, pulling his armour off.

"Every stitch. I need to do a full examination. On the table please."

Lexi frosted the glass of her office window with the privacy controls and waited for Drack to finish undressing and clamber onto the examination table. Once he'd settled she began her examination, scanning him from head to foot with her omni-tool. From her preliminary findings it appeared that the damage was confined to, as misfortune would have it, his remaining biological components. He wouldn't have to wait for replacement parts at least.

"You have a lot to be thankful for, Drack. Redundant organs are saving your life right now." Lexi said, finishing up her scan. It looked worse than it actually was, she could repair the damage easily enough, but it was another knock Drack could ill-afford.

"I'm going to put you out now, and when you wake up we're going to have a serious talk."

"Oh crap. Best not wake me up then." Drack muttered with a grimace.

"Funny. Good-night."

With that she administered the anaesthetic, enough to knock out twenty humans. He was out in an instant. Lexi gathered her tools and went to work, starting with a generous helping of MediGel. Once the goo had settled, she picked up her bio-grafter and went in.

oOo

Drack was in pain. Nothing new there, he was always in pain, but this pain was new. It was white hot, searing and throbbing all at once. Every breath brought a fresh flash of agony; it would have been terrifying had he not encountered this pain before. He'd been shot a _lot_ over the years.

The pain began to subside as, there in his periphery vision, a beautiful blue goddess administered a hypo into his neck. His vision started to clear, bringing a very pissed-off looking Lexi into focus. He was in for it now.

"You're grounded and confined to the MedBay for a week. I've repaired the damaged tissue as much as I can, the rest is up to you. I'll be taking daily scans to monitor your recovery, and you'll eat a tightly controlled diet. You will _not_ be drinking. Do you understand?" Lexi asked, looking down at him a little more coldly than Drack would have liked. He'd seen that look before.

"Yeah. I got it. You gonna' chew me out for the whole week?" he asked with a sigh.

"Do I really need to?" Lexi asked, raising an eyebrow at him.

"Heard it all before Doc. It's not like I'm gonna' change my ways at this point. A whole week, huh?"

"Depending on your recovery. You're not leaving until I'm satisfied so you might as well get comfortable. You're not healing as fast as you used to Drack."

Drack tried to sit up but all strength had left him, all he could do was flop limply to the table. As a younger Krogan, his pride might have been in danger, but he'd accepted his diminishing capabilities long ago.

"Yeah, yeah, I know. I'm an old man, gotta take it easy, I'm not as _spry_ as I used to be. Heard all _that_ before too. Any chance you helpin' me get some pants on?" Drack asked, glancing at the neat pile of cotton scrubs Lexi had prepared for him.

"Now, now, Drack. No need to be bashful." Lexi said with a slight smirk. Drack rolled his head back and laughed mightily.

"You might not have noticed, Doc. I don't have anything to be _bashful_ about. Still doesn't mean I should be giving away the show for free." Drack said with an air of great self-assurance. Lexi had seen Drack naked many times since his arrival on-board, but she'd never _looked_. It wouldn't be professional to _look_.

"Yes Drack, you're an impressive specimen. Nothing I haven't seen before." Lexi muttered, taking the draw-string pants and partially dressing her patient.

"Hah! By the shell, that reminds me. I was working out in the Kepler Verge…" Drack started off on one of his stories, and Lexi had to wonder briefly if he was in some small way psychic.

" _Well, I'm not curled up in his lap with a glass of wine and those arms around me but this will do."_ she thought to herself. " _Not professional Lexi."_

"...tracking down some arms dealers for Citadel Security. They sent a rookie along…"

" _Besides, I'm his Doctor. Nobody has feelings for their Doctor…"_

"...Garrus something. Good kid. Anyway, it all went south and we ended up pinned down by a whole bunch of my countrymen."

" _He's my patient, it's unethical! Nice to think about but no. Never in a thousand years."_

"This C-Sec grunt looks at me and tells me to grow a quad and start shooting. So I took off all my armour right there, leaped over the cover and charged the mercs. Ha! They took one look at me and ran for the hills. Know what's scarier than a charging Krogan, Doc?"

"Do tell." Lexi said with a patient smile.

"Being run down by a quads-out Krogan who's _really_ happy to see you. Hah!" Drack boomed.

"Hold on, are you saying you were…

"There's no point carrying a massive weapon if nobody gets to see it. Fully engorged! Ha-ha-hah-Oh fuck...my ribs." Drack bellowed in high spirits, despite the hole in his lung.

"Sounds like you had quite the adventure." Lexi said with a smile.

"Oh shell, you have no idea Doc. Before your time this was. I had it _all_ ; days spent quad-deep in blood and bullets, getting the blood flowing...then back to my apartment and a beautiful Human woman or Asari, whoever the client had hired, for a long, slow... _massage_." Drack grumbled happily to himself, reliving the memory. After a moment he snapped back to himself and frowned. "Sorry Doc, you didn't need to hear that."

"It's quite all right Drack, I'm sure you have many fascinating stories, and _again,_ I'm your Doctor. You can tell me anything. In confidence. I took an oath and everything." Lexi said reassuringly. Drack just grunted to himself.

"You don't need a wrinkly old sack like me talking your ear off." he muttered with a frown.

"We have seven days together ahead of us and, strictly speaking, I don't have ears. I'd be happy to hear your stories, Drack. In fact, I'd consider it an honour. I have to go to check in on Liam, sprained ankle, would you like me to put you out for a few hours? " Lexi asked, holding up a hypo. Drack nodded with a warm smile.

"You're a peach, Doc."

"Drack, when it's just us...you can call me Lexi." Lexi said kindly, taking one of his massive, rough hands into her own and pressing the hypo to his wrist. His eyes flickered closed and he went to sleep with a contented smile. Lexi hesitated for a moment, unsure of herself for the first time in over a hundred years. She steeled herself and gently stroked her fingertips across the sleeping Krogans cheek before departing swiftly.

The coming week would a trial, she could tell.

oOo

Vetra groaned in pleasure and wriggled slightly on the silk sheets of Ryder's bed, as her enthusiastic Pathfinder worked on her further down.

"Oh fuck...Scott, right there...ah...just like that." she gasped, bunching up the sheets in her hands. Scott knew exactly where to press, where to dig his fingers in and where to stroke to bring Vetra to the point of insanity. "H-how... _hng_...how do you _do_ that?"

Scott smiled up at her from his perch on the end of his bed. He was sat at an angle to her with her feet propped in his lap; he had discovered some nights previous that Vetra very much enjoyed a foot-rub after a long day, and he was more than happy to oblige her. It gave him a perfect opportunity to learn more about his lovers body, which was secretly a big thing to him. The sex itself was amazing, but he wanted to know every inch of her. It was his kink, in a way; an ardent devotee of the female form. At least, _this_ female's form.

It amazed him how wrong his preconceptions had been, regarding Turian physiology. While the males of the species were indeed nearly covered in hard, rough carapace, the females were so much less so. He only had Vetra's to go on as an example but he very much liked what he saw and felt.

He regarded her left foot as an example. The top of her foot was adorned with hard, smooth plates that reminded Scott of ornate steel armour worn by European knights in Earth's ancient past, in the way that they overlapped each other in a neat, symmetrical pattern. They did not stand proud of the surrounding skin, and so did not catch on any material or Scott's fingers as he worked. Her two toes were tipped with dangerous claws that could shred flesh like paper; she'd nicked him a few times by accident before taking a file to them, for his sake.

The exposed skin, too, was contrary to his expectation; along the underside of her foot, from her toes to her ankle, the skin there was smooth and supple, if a little firmer than human skin. It reminded him of high-quality and well maintained leather, and most importantly, it was _receptive_ to his stress-relieving touch.

Above her ankle, or what Scott equated to an ankle, her skin became much softer and human-like, while still retaining that odd, slightly metallic quality that made it cool and pleasing to the touch. The plates that adorned her shins, knees and upper legs became thicker, more pronounced, but still just as smooth and full of lustre. He could go on, he could admire her all night, but presently he dug his fingers into the sole of her foot and rubbed small circles into the joint between her toes, which curled in delight.

"Okay you need to be up here now, before you get too excited." Vetra said with some regret. He was _damn_ good at that. Scott sighed and looked up at her contented expression. He placed a quick line of kisses along the arch of her foot before scooting up to embrace her.

"Says you! Messing up my best sheets and everything." Scott declared indignantly.

"Hay, if you care so much about your sheets you shouldn't have offered." Vetra pointed out.

"But you _like_ it when I rub your feet." Scott defended himself. Vetra let out a short chuckle.

"No, I like having someone take care of me. _You_ like rubbing my feet." she countered

"Yeah, okay you have nice feet." Scott confessed. Vetra gave him a sly grin, the the way Turians did, before rolling over onto her front and swinging her legs up behind her. Looking down, Scott was treated to a view of her narrow waist, the crest of her strong, rounded backside, the expanse of legs that went on for days and finally the soles of her feet, which she flexed teasingly once she caught him looking.

"It's not a fetish, Vetra." Scott said with mild annoyance.

"I never said it was." she countered innocently.

"You've been reading up on human sexual practices again, you left the article open on my terminal. And you were staring at my shorts most of the time to see if I was _enjoying_ myself." Scott pointed out sternly. "I _do not_ have a foot fetish. That been said…"

Scott took her moment of confusion to sit up and lean down her body, pausing briefly to place a tender kiss on her backside. He took one of her her feet in hand and traced his tongue in a small circle on her heel, before tracing a long, languid trail up the her sole, over the ball and along one of her toes. He was slow about it, and nibbled gently at the ball over her foot when he was done; she tasted like metal and sweat.

"...that doesn't mean _you_ don't have one."

He looked her dead in the eye and saw the skin under her facial carapace had turned to a deep midnight blue; the Turian equivalent of blushing. Her breathing had become shallow and laboured. Her jaw hung open slightly. Scott had found a new button to press.

Vetra's hand shot out and hit the lighting controls on the bedside table. As the room plunged into darkness, she flipped onto her back and pulled Scott on top of her, drawing him close and bringing her mouth to his ear.

She softly whispered to him, making a request she'd never made before, using words she'd only ever read before. He leaned back to look at her, wide eyed and somewhat stunned. When the trance broke he pressed his lips to her mouth, letting her long, slender tongue explore his own. She pulled his shorts down his legs as far as her arms would allow, before drawing her legs up, hooking the material with her claws, and pushing them down the rest of the way, caressing his legs with hers as she went.

Vetra had made some odd requests of him in the past, and Scott was fine with all of them, but on this occasion something stuck in him. Sure, he and Vetra had been together only a matter of weeks, a month and a half at best, but for all the sneaking around, stolen kisses in the storage room, frantic fucking in the showers after a fire-fight, and their _softer_ night of simply holding each other, nothing had him prepared for those words in his ear.

Maybe she just knew him too well.

"Scott, what's wrong?" Vetra asked gently, noting his hesitation despite her own quickly rising need for him.

"It's just...no one's ever um...indulge me? Would you just...ask me that again?" Scott asked, feeling somewhat like a fool. Vetra licked his jaw lightly, and drew his head to rest next to hers. She gave his earlobe a playful nip before murmuring the sweetest words he'd ever heard.

"Make love to me Scott... _please?_ "

oOo

AN: These are going somewhere. I'm not sure where yet, I'll tell you when we get there.  
Also, cheese, anyone? I'm getting a cheesy whiff. Let me know.

Toodles x


	4. You Put The Freak In Me

**Andromeda Tales: You Put The Freak In Me.**

Vetra Nyx stormed into the armoury and desperately wished she had a door to slam; for someone normally so collected, she was having an outright meltdown as the past twenty-four hours of her life had pushed her to what felt like the brink of insanity. It wasn't enough that she'd escaped a Kett stronghold and fought her way across half a desert to be rescued, or that she'd saved the lives of _two_ of her crew mates along the way! No, now there was _this,_ and in all her days she'd never felt so conflicted.

As she neared her cot her legs gave out, having been somewhat akin to jelly for the past half an hour. She crumpled onto the improvised sleeping space and pulled her sleeping bag over her head, groaning inwardly. She felt like an utter mess; still wet from the shower, with clotted wounds that needed seeing too, utterly exhausted and, in complete contrast to everything else, tingling and warm from the stomach down.

"Breathe Vetra...just breathe." she muttered to herself, trying to calm her heart rate, which presently was hammering at her chest like a machine-gun. "It was just sex."

The moment the words left her mouth the truth hit home. She'd had sex with Ryder. In the shower. After a battle.

She'd had frantic, adrenaline furled, happy-to-be-alive, desperate sex with Ryder, in the _showers_.

True, the great running battle and escape had stoked the fire in her belly beyond all sense and reason, and once safely aboard the Tempest she'd taken herself away from her friends, needing to calm herself in private lest she snap at them and cause offence. She'd known from day one that Ryder shared this reaction to near-death situations, and they'd grown closer over their shared secret love of the battlefield.

But that fire, which had sent her from her friends and into the showers, had not been so easily extinguished. Finding Ryder there, bloodied and beaten, had been comforting for her. It was good to know her dear friend was still right there with her, both on the battlefield and off.

Seeing his wound, a blistering streak of seared skin and muscle, had sent a shock of concern through her; a sudden alertness and desire to assess and protect. She'd strode into his cubicle, unconcerned by their respective nakedness, to inspect his battered body.

Up to that point everything made sense to her, but as their bodies had gotten closer and their touches more lingering, a heady fog had filled her mind and left her with nothing but intense sexual desire.

" _No...not just that. Him...Scott."_ Vetra thought to herself, locking the armoury door for some privacy.

She knew it in her bones; had it been anyone other than Ryder in the showers, she wouldn't be close to hyperventilating in the isolation of a weapons lock-up. She wouldn't have felt comfortable being that close to anyone else, let alone naked and vulnerable. So it couldn't be that, in the afterglow of battle, she had acted on a primal desire to feel alive in the heat of the moment. She had acted on a primal desire to feel _Scott_ , and the heat of his movements.

Spirits, she had wanted him so badly, in that crucial moment when he appeared to her as the most perfect being, and she'd tasted the salty skin of his neck and jaw. When he reacted with such sudden, smouldering desire she'd felt her heart skip a beat. Glancing down between them to find him just as worked up as she had been the final straw; she dedicated herself to having him, there and and then. Not because anyone would do, because only _he_ would do.

When finally she'd seated herself upon him and they gave themselves over to the rhythm of passion, she'd felt something entirely alien to her, something so profoundly new it took her breath away.

Oh, she'd had lovers in the past, and those exploits had always satisfied her, but this was so far beyond mere satisfaction; in the last seconds of their joining, when all time and space ceased to exist in the face of the pleasure that ripped through her, Vetra had wrapped her legs around him and squeezed him as close as she could manage. In that brief moment she needed him, all of him, there with her.

To feel her body reacting, to feel _him_ reacting to her, within her, to feel like she'd die without him and wishing only to remain with him in that shower stall forever. She rode that wave, bathed in the smell of his skin and the power of his body, delighting at the foul words that fell from them both and the gentle rocking motion that came after.

She'd never had it so good.

Slowly her mind cleared and her sense came back to her, and with them the sudden comprehension of what had just transpired; the power of the feelings that swept over her and the unsettling truth about the man who had brought them upon her.

 _Scott Ryder. Human Pathfinder. Emphasis on the word "Human"._

She'd felt shame in that moment; shame and guilt mixed with some small amount of revulsion. A _human_ of all things! It's not like it wasn't a common enough thing in the Milky Way; many Turian women found humans attractive, but never Vetra. Just as sure as she was of her orientation, Vetra knew she did not find humans desirable.

And yet, she had. And infinitely more so than any of her previous lovers, all of them Turian. Vetra huffed angrily and went to her locker, retrieving MediGel, a bandage and bottle of pills. As she stripped off her clothes, she discovered a milky viscous substance in the seat of her pants. A sudden wave of revulsion and excitement made her throw the soiled garments across the room. She cleaned herself up as best she could with a cloth from her work bench and set about tending to her wounds. Once they were coated in MediGel and bound, she took two of the pills and swallowed them dry. The MediGel had numbed her wounds, but the pills weren't for the pain.

She pulled on some light civilian clothing and turned out the lights. Nobody ever minded her sleeping in the armoury, she practically lived there. She hit the mattress and fell asleep in moments, hoping against all hope that it would all have been a dream.

oOo

When Vetra awoke she groaned, it was becoming a habit. Her clock told her she'd only gotten five hours rest; she'd survived on less but she felt like she could do with double. Hauling herself to her feet was a monumental task, but once done it seemed only right she go in search of food.

The ship was on it's night shift, which meant Kello was on the bridge, Gil would be tinkering in the engine room, and all else would be sound asleep. It was the perfect time to make tea and find something to comfort her empty belly and turbulent soul. She watched the tea-bag float in the boiling water and, reluctantly, let her mind drift back to settle on the root of her turmoil.

Sleep never failed to bring her focus and renewed objectivity. If she boiled it down to the facts, everything was not so _bad_ after all. How she reacted to the event, and the why behind it, _that_ was where the problem lay. Vetra sat down and sipped at her tea.

Scott Ryder was a wonderful man. Vetra knew this. He was kind, considerate and brave; never cowardly or cruel, never brutal for brutality sake. He had a disarming honesty about him, and his witty charm turned the gaze of nearly every woman he met. More than this, he was a warrior of terrific skill and cunning; he revelled in the thrill of battle and gave his all for every foot of ground won against the Kett. Vetra fought by his side happily, joyfully even. Even amidst the gunfire he would still find time to crack wise, or hurl insults at their enemies. He loved every second of it, and she found that endearing.

There were times, in the midst of battle, when her eyes would find his and they would share a fraction of a second, knowing that _this_ was where they belonged: together, knee deep in the shit.

She recognised in him all the qualities that appealed to her in a man. He was goodness _,_ through and through. A good man, doing his best to improve the lives of others. She loved that about him, after the shady life she had led she'd never want a man like her. She'd want someone good. Someone with a clear conscience.

" _Bastard. I bet he's not losing sleep over this."_ Vetra through angrily, staring into her tea.

She quietly wondered what Ryder would say, seeing her like this. She had always carried herself with such confidence, acted so much as _one of the boys_ , so no one would ever need or want to peer into her any deeper. Her work, back home, had left her with little room for exploitable weakness, and for Sid's sake, she'd closed herself off from so many things.

Not that she thought for one second that Scott would ever leverage her insecurities against her, he was utterly above such underhanded tactics. That said, she couldn't show weakness in front of him, not when he had recently found himself fatherless and utterly unprepared for being Pathfinder. He depended on her, but still the thought of him seeing her fretting like a little girl…

She forced the thought from her mind with cringe. It terrified her just to think about thinking about it. She turned back to her food, scarfing down the Blast-Oh's and finishing her tea. She needed to work. Work and rest, rest and work. With a warm drink inside her, and nobody else about, she opted for rest, slipping into the crew quarters and into her assigned bed. Cora was snoring quietly into the bulkhead and Liam was half hanging from his bunk. Vetra gently rolled him back over before bedding down, wondering if, when next she woke, she'd be able to get a better grip on things.

oOo

Eight hours passed Vetra by as she slumbered. Her crew mates even left her to sleep when their shift came on; she was wounded after all, and had earned a good long rest. When at last she awoke and set about her day, she was pleased that at least her stomach had stopped churning so much.

It occurred to her that she might need some advice. Someone more in tune with their emotions might be able to help her get a handle on things. Most importantly, she had mused over her second breakfast, she at least had put a finger roughly on the issue. She could recall now with a clear mind the events that transpired in the showers, and objectively conclude that it was, in spite of everything, truly wonderful. She recalled the last moments when she'd hurried out of the shower, leaving Scott alone, and her stomach twisted violently. There was guilt there, and she needed to know why.

As an Angaran, Jaal was very free and open with his emotions. It was a refreshing quirk of his people,;they held nothing back when it came to their feelings, and so had a rather deep insight into matters of the heart. Jaal had become something of a ship counsellor, something Lexi had fully supported, for some reason.

Vetra cleared away a few chores before heading to the tech-lab and finding the Angaran there, elbows deep in a piece of salvaged space junk. It looked like a recon-probe.

"Hay Jaal, what have you got there?" Vetra asked from the doorway. He looked up from his work with a beaming smile

"Ah, Vetra! A wonderful bit of...well actually I have no idea what it is, but it's still wonderful. Please, come in. Have a seat." he said, pulling a dust blanket off a pair of chairs he had restored for Liam. Vetra closed the door behind her and took a seat, smiling at the Angarans warmth and childlike intrigue with broken machines.

"So, how may I be of service my friend?" he asked, sitting himself alongside her with a multitool in one hand and a piece of salvage in the other.

"I had some free time, thought I might come and pick your brain about something." Vetra stated. Jall smiled and turned to the piece of salvage in his hands.

"We have much free time here. What is on your mind?"

"I was thinking about how Angarans interpret and act on their feelings. It's pretty interesting...I was wondering how you deal with feelings of guilt." Vetra explained. Luckily, Jaal was a very literal individual and took her curiosity at face value.

"Ah, guilt. Yes. We Angaran feel it keenly, we rely on it in a way." Jaal said as he worked, removing parts and replacing them.

"How so?" Vetra asked.

"Through guilt, an Angaran knows that by word or deed, he or she has brought shame on themselves, and their family. For example, there is no shame in striking down a foe, especially when lives are at stake. I feel no guilt over the lives _I_ have taken. However, if through action or inaction a loved one were to come to harm, a responsible Angaran would be ashamed, and through guilt know action must be taken to make amends. No Angaran can live with such guilt and will always seek to set matters right, or die trying."

Jaal spoke in a slow, contemplative manner, working all the while. He'd hand bits and pieces for Vetra to hold, involving her in his work.

"Guilt is the soul's call to action, an imbalance in one's true self that lets us know we must make things right and rid ourselves of our shame, our misdeeds. Guilt is a good thing, really. It means you recognise your failings, and care enough to feel badly about them. What are you feeling guilty for, Vetra?"

Suddenly Jaal was looking at her, and Vetra could swear he saw right through her. His eyes were piercing and soulful, as if with a mere glance his heart could see the troubles of her own, and he cared. She hated to lie to him.

"Nothing at all Jaal. I was just wondering, y'know?"

Jaal smiled at her and nodded, turning back to his work.

"Then permit me, as your friend, to arm you for the day when you might. It is one thing to _feel_ guilt, but another entirely to act upon it. Where does one start? Sometimes the answer is beyond us, but look here…" Jaal said, holding up the piece of junk, which lay now spread open in his hands. He closed the device back together, making it once again a nondescript gray cube of metal. "I had no idea what this was, what it's purpose might be, and so I had no way to fix it. But now…"

He opened up the device again, exposing its components, one of which was clearly burned out.

"...now I have taken it apart, I can see it is a simple sensor relay, and the timing node is destroyed. Now I can fix this problem. Remember this, Vetra: the first step to solving a problem is to take it apart. Once done, you can see what is broken, and how that one small thing may impact the workings of a much larger machine. Does this make sense?"

Vetra nodded and smiled at Jall, who smiled back.

"I'll let you get back to it, thanks Jaal. I mean it." Vetra said, standing to take her leave.

"You are always welcome. Stay strong, and clear."

Vetra departed and made for the armoury. With Jaal's words sinking in, and the strange feelings that the Angaran was more perceptive than he let on, Vetra had a call to make. Sid had always been the one to turn to in times of inner turmoil. As much as she was a pain in the ass, she was more of an authority on relationships than Vetra could ever hope to be. Sitting herself down at her desk, Vetra placed the call.

"Well lookie here! A call from my Big Sis. Is it my birthday?" Sid squealed, answering the call. It was good to hear her voice again.

"Hay Sid. Uh...do you have a minute?" Vetra asked, shifting some things around her desk absently.

"Always, I'm off duty anyway. Sis, why are you calling me on an encrypted channel? Oh! Is there something _clandestine_ going on?" Sid asked excitedly.

"Sorta. No. Uh, maybe? I dunno Sid. I need your advice, I think. I'm in a bit of a bind here."

"Oh no...Vetra Nyx, what did you do?" Sid demanded, sounding more like a stern parent than Vetra ever had.

"Ryder." Vetra stated.

"Ryder? What, did you shoot him or something?"

"No! I uh...we, I mean. Shit...okay, here it is. I had sex with him."

"..."

"Sid?"

"Details, woman. Right now. Spill it!"

"We'd just got back from an engagement with the Kett. We were in the showers and...Sid, don't make me tell you everything, I'm freaking out here." Vetra pleaded, resting her head in her hands.

"That sounds... _mmmmmh_...how was he?" Sid asked in a sly, hushed tone.

"Sid! Are you not hearing me, I had sex with a _human!_ "

"And I'm asking how it was. Indulge a girl would you, I'm trying to help."

Vetra sighed and resigned herself to what was to come.

"It was...really good. Amazing even. Top marks." she said nonchalantly.

" _Really?!_ Oh wow, I knew he was an impressive guy but a great lay too?"

"A fucking _savant_."

"Well, shit on me." Sid said with a laugh. "So what's the issue?"

"I'm not into humans. I felt...after, y'know, I felt dirty. Sick inside." Vetra confessed.

"How would you know if he's the only human you've jumped? I'm assuming he's the only one…"

"Yeah, what's your point?" Vetra snapped a little hastily.

"Well, you say you don't _like_ humans but you've never had the data to back that up. Now you do, and you say it was great…"

"The _sex_ was great." Vetra interjected.

"Yeah okay, so how about _him_. Tell me about _him_ , not what he did. What was his body like?" Sid asked.

"He was...warm. Wet, from the shower. Bloody too, he was hurt. I was inspecting his wound, and he started looking at mine and...all the touching just got me worked up."

"Not the _what_ , Vet, the _who_." Sid reminded her.

"Okay! He was... _is…_ wonderful. He's strong, built, y'know? Firm in all the right places, but still soft! Humans are so damn soft, and the _hair!_ On his chest, his legs. Okay I quite like that bit."

"What about Little Pathfinder?" Sid asked teasingly. Vetra paused for a moment before answering.

"There's nothing little about him, Sid."

Sid made a noise that sounded like she'd choked on something, while squealing and falling off her seat at the same time.

"Vetra, sis, if you don't want him, can I have him? Please?" she begged in excited desperation.

"No! Find your own human, he's mine!"

"A-HA! Got you!" Sid crowed. Vetra felt her heart almost stop as the words that just fell from her came hurtling back at full force. "You love the son of a bitch, don't you?!"

"For fuck's sake, Sid! I don't _do_ humans!" Vetra insisted. "I felt sick after. I may as well have slept with _you!_ "

"Oh Vet, super fucking gross! What's wrong with you?!"

"That's what I'm getting at. That's the feeling I had: disgust. With myself." Vetra sighed again. This conversation was harder than she imagined, longer too. Damn her insightful sister.

"Okay, but still you went there, and loved it by what I'm hearing. I know if I was butt-naked with a Vorcha, I wouldn't hit that if my life depended on it. Thinking about it... _eesh_ no. Yuck." Sid pointed out with an audible shudder.

"So...what, I'm deluding myself?" Vetra asked.

"I can't say, but I will tell you this: I didn't know I liked Krogan until I had one quad deep in me two nights ago."

It was Vetra's turn to fall off her chair with a cry. That was her little sister talking!

"He was in Vortex…" Sid continued. "We got to talking. He's young, works in Hydroponics, he was sweet. I took him home and had him 'till the sun came up, so to speak. Krogan, by the way? Not as rough as you'd think. He's coming over tonight, wants to take me on a romantic date. He'll be taking me alright…"

"Sid! I know you're grown up but I'm still your sister, damn! I can't hear half this shit, I don't need to know...okay, how _big_ was…"

"Massive. Too much, actually. Ryder?"

"Filling, and then some."

It had been so long since Vetra had enjoyed some girl-talk with her sister; six-hundred years too long, in fact.

"So, equipment spec's aside, let's review. You like him as a person, you like his body, and you _love_ what he can do with it. I'm not hearing an issue here, Sis, other than some old preconceptions. Y'know, nobody ever told you it wasn't okay to sleep with a human. How was _he_ about it? What happened after?"

"I ran." Vetra muttered.

"Come again?" Sid was deadpan.

"No, I said I ran. I split. I freaked out, got off him, grabbed my gear and ran away."

Sid was silent for a few moments before Vetra heard her younger sister sigh deeply.

"Oh Vet...please tell me you're kidding. No, don't bother, I can always tell. Oh sister mine."

She sounded sad, not upset or tearful, more like filled with regret.

"Sid, what's up?" Vetra asked gently. She knew her sister.

"These...these words should come from me in person, but we don't have that option right now. Have you seen or spoken to him since?"

"No, I don't even…"

"Than be quiet, sister. Listen to me. Back home, I knew...I've always _known_ what you did to keep me safe. The people you worked with, the sacrifices you had to make, I know about it all. Hear me when I say you don't have to do that any more. Not with Scott Ryder. You don't have to be made of stone around him.

After you left with him, I dug up his file. Had to call in a marker to get it but I did. Vetra, the man you're flying around the stars with is...he's complex. You say you ran out on him, he felt that. Going by his psych profile I'd say that really took the wind out of him. From what I read from the reports, and I'm paraphrasing here, but he's not the kind of man to sleep around, y'know? Oh he flirts, he flirts like a pro, but it's a smokescreen, that's all."

Vetra let this all sink in. Putting aside the fact that Sid had access to classified material, she didn't know how she felt about Ryder's psych profile. Could he really be that kind of man?

"So, in a nutshell?" Vetra asked.

"He's golden. You can trust him. He'd sooner jump on a grenade than hurt people he cares about. You can let him _in_ , Vetra. If that's what you want, of course. Tell me, just between us, what does he mean to you?" Sid enquired.

"I...I don't know the words, Sid. I want to but I just don't know them. I shoot stuff, I don't recite poetry." Vetra confessed.

"Well think about it. Think about it hard, and the _moment_ you know _go and talk to him!_ Don't let this lie, you hear me? He deserves better than to feel used."

"Sid...what if I do like him? What if it's more than...what if it's _more_?"

That was the big question: was there something wrong with it all, with her?

"Then we're both freaks, but I'm gonna' climb on a Krogan tonight and get _nasty_ , and no fucks will be given to what some proud, noble Turian citizen may say about it. Be a freak, own it. The stars won't go out because you fell for a human." Sid pointed out.

"What if he...doesn't? Y'know...feel that way?"

"Then you're gonna have to suck it up and be stone for a while. Talk to him, and when you do, make sure you apologise and take note of how he reacts. He's got sarcasm and wit, but he won't lie to you. I guarantee it. Just take some time to think, first."

"Thanks Sid. I will. Everything okay with you?"

"Work sucks, but in a few hours so will I." Sid said devilishly.

"Fuck, Sid!"

"That to."

"Sid!"

"Gotta' go. Swing by next time you're on the station. Bring Ryder. Promise me?"

"I promise, Sid. Thanks again. You're a good sister."

"Love you! Bye!"

oOo

Vetra had plenty of time to sit and think. After what felt like an eternity, she left the armoury and went for lunch. Ryder, as it happened, had been found unconscious in his quarters and rushed to the MedBay. Scuttlebutt said he'd suffered an extreme allergic reaction; Lexi had to put him in a drug induced coma to be safe. Vetra instinctively knew it was her fault; she'd seen her blood on him when they'd _finished_.

" _Hell...the sex alone could have killed him."_ Vetra thought to herself with some morbid amusement. " _I could ride him to death."_

Ryder recovered in swift time and started making the rounds, after eating all the pasta on the ship, so Vetra heard. She wasn't ready for him, she still had to _think_ , and so made every effort to dodge him. It proved futile on such a small ship, and she felt awkward being in the same room as him. She ran back to her work to bury herself in it. She needed time.

She found some peace working on one of Ryder's rifles. It was an M98-B "Black Widow" Anti-Material Rifle. Every sniper learned to fear this weapon, as it was meant for killing only two things: tanks and other snipers. It boasted the longest range and greatest stopping power in the Alliance Armoury, second only to the original M98 Widow. Ryder affectionately called his "Widowmaker". Apparently, a lot of people did.

Ryder's rifle was old, much older than the production model. Vetra guessed it was a prototype or a field-test model. The recoil dampeners were shot, and getting replacement parts was out of the question for what was practically an antique. Vetra wanted to fix the rifle for Ryder, as if fixing _it_ would fix _them_. Right then, the man himself walked in, and Vetra's insides turned to ice. She cast her eyes down at the disassembled rifle and tried to shut him out.

"What do you want Ryder?" she asked, taking up a new tool to probe around the guts of the rifle.

"Uh...just checking in. Everything okay with you?" Ryder asked, stepping closer to inspect the weapon. He was too close, she wasn't ready for this, and damn it all, did he seem... _okay?_

"Everything apart from the interruption. These weapons won't maintain themselves, so if you don't mind…" Vetra said. It came out much colder than she wanted. She cursed herself for being so afraid.

"Something's bothering you, and I'm a lot of things but blind isn't one of them." Scott said firmly. "Listen, Vetra...if you want to talk…"

" _Oh Spirits, why do you have to be so kind? I can't do this to you Scott."_ Vetra thought. She wanted to come up with something to say, something to reassure him and get him out of the Armoury until she had something more to offer, she needed a _plan_ , but her mouth got there first.

"I don't need to talk about it. I really don't. How about you?"

His expression almost killed her.

"Don't see that we've got much to talk about. I'll leave you to it."

And then he was gone.

oOo

Vetra spent the rest of the day working on his rifle and deep in contemplation. She made a list in her head, checked it twice, of every reason she shouldn't want to be with Ryder, and it came to naught. On the other side of the coin, there had always been something there, and in a sudden moment of clarity Vetra realised nothing else mattered. No one else mattered save him.

She'd hurt him, possibly twice now, and her guts twisted to think about it. The guilt was upon her, what had Jaal called it? The soul's call to action. She needed to make things right, and to know if he felt about her...whatever it was she felt about him.

She needed to see him. If it all went wrong then...well, that was life. She hurried to his quarters and hit the buzzer. He called her in and she strode over the threshold. Time to be brave. Time to let him in.

"Okay, I need to talk about it."

AN: Had to get this off my chest before moving forward.  
Toodles x


	5. V for Vortex

"This is Nexus Tower, docking locks are engaged and you are clear to disembark. Welcome back, Tempest. It's good to have you home."

It was with much elation that the crew of the Tempest, dressed in their civilian clothes, departed their flying home and began their three day stay-over on the Nexus. Scott Ryder, leader of the Pathfinder team, had declared the crew needed a break after nearly two months scouring the stars, and so they returned to the Nexus. Scott strode merrily down the jet bridge, casting an amused glance to Vetra as Liam and Peebee barged past him and raced off to amuse themselves, however they might.

"Hay! Someone's gonna' trip and die and I'm not cleaning it up!" Scott yelled after the pair, but it was too late as they'd already sped off to terrorise the Nexus.

"Kids, huh?" Vetra noted with a smirk.

There was no plan to the stay, only a time to be back aboard the Tempest by. Scott made a point of socialising with his crew but never insisted they hang together on the Nexus. Everyone needed some down-time, and Scott made sure they all got theirs. Presently Scott directed himself to his apartment, a short shuttle-ride away from the Dock, with Vetra in tow; her apartment was near to his so they made the trip together. They said very little and walked swiftly down the all-but deserted corridors and, checking that no one was watching them, hurried into Scott's apartment together.

The door had barely hissed shut when Vetra pushed Scott against the wall, slid her hands through his hair and pressed her forehead to his and sighed with tangible relief, like a heavy weight had fallen from her. Scott, for his part, wrapped his arms around her slender frame and pulled her tight against himself.

"Shit Scott...we need to take shore-leave more often." Vetra mumbled into her lover's ear as she pressed her face into his neck, nipping gently at his skin.

"I hear you. That tin-can can get a bit cramped at times." Scott said, craning his head to expose more of his neck, indulging the pleasures of his Turian girlfriend. "And the kids are always in the way."

"Speaking of kids...wanna' go try to make some?" Vetra asked with a particularly rough nibble along his shoulder.

"Christ, I'm still sore from last night. You're gonna be the death of me, Vetra Nyx." Scott said with a sheepish grin. Vetra shot him a mischievous look and took her hands in his, placing them on the zip of her shirt.

"Take it off." she told him simply. Scott loved it when she showed her dominant side, and slowly slid the fastening down until it broke free of itself. He pulled the garment from her and, once it had been discarded, allowed Vetra to push him to his knees, his back and head pressed against the wall like a trapped animal.

"Now the pants." she said, tracing a deadly talon over her belt buckle. Scott attended to it and went to unzip her, but she stepped back, instead preferring to pin him into the wall with a combat-boot clad foot. He dutifully unbuckled the boot and slipped her foot from it, then the other was thrust roughly into his chest. He attended to it also, pausing to place a line of kisses along the curve of her ankle. His hands went back to the waistband over her trousers but she slapped them away.

"With your mouth." she said, a dark blush creeping around the edges of her face and a hot, slightly sweet, aroma emanating from her unbuckled trousers.

"That...might be a little taxing." Scott said, looking up at her. She considered it for a moment, tracing her fingers gently through his hair.

"Hands then." she said, taking a fistful of hair which brought a soft gasp from him. He slipped his fingers over the waistband and pulled the garment down, just enough to place his hands, fingers spread wide, on the cheeks of her backside and caress down her legs, bringing the trousers with them. Once that garment was gone and she stood over him in her most natural state, she lifted one of her legs over his shoulder and pulled his head closer.

" _Now_ with your mouth."

Scott was happy to oblige.

After a few minutes she yanked his head away sharply, much to his pleasure and disappointment, and lifted him to his feet.

"I have a question for you." she told him, breathing heavily and soon to be beyond the reach of her rational mind. She stripped him of his shirt and trailed her tongue around his neck, down over his nipples and stomach as she sunk to her knees before him. She knelt back on her haunches, her knees spread wide. With one hand she pleasured herself while the other removed Scott from the restraints of his trousers and pleasured him in turn. He'd had the foresight to go without underwear, to Vetra's delight.

With him in hand, Vetra looked up at her lover and gave him a gentle lick. The shudder that ran through him was not lost on her.

"So, how's this for a pose?" She asked, leaning all the way back, until she almost touched the floor, giving him a view of _everything._

"Hnnng...you _fucking tease_..." Scott breathed, becoming lost in the fog of desire. Vetra, at least, had some semblance of control. She straightened up and took his hands in hers again, placing them around the back of her head.

"No need to be gentle."

She gave him a lick, then swallowed him whole.

oOo

An hour or so later found Scott and Vetra lying on the Pathfinder's bed, utterly satisfied and hip deep in the warm fuzzies. Vetra had a preference for straddling her lover and lying flat against him, resting her head against his chest and wrapping her arms under the small of his back. It was comfortable for them both, if a little unusual for Scott, but he wouldn't deny her anything after the attentions she'd lavished upon him.

"Hmm...oh! Sid wants to meet us for drinks, by the way." Vetra said quietly, enjoying the feeling of Scott's fingertips tracing the edges of the carapace that lined her spine and neck. "She's bringing her boyfriend along...said I had to bring mine."

"She knows?" Scott asked with some surprise.

"She happens to be the one responsible for us being together. I may have told her about...y'know... _the shower_." Vetra said. Scott was fell silent and his brow furrowed. "You don't like that I told her, do you?"

Scott considered his answer before giving it.

"You know I'm a pretty private guy, especially about this, but no. I don't mind that you told her. I'd never ask you to keep anything from your sister, I wouldn't want to come between you."

Vetra smiled slyly to herself.

"I'm sure you'd love to _come_ between us."

"What do you mea... _oh!_ Oh Jesus, Vetra! She's a kid! _And_ your sister! Did I mention, a kid?! What, fourteen, fifteen?" Scott exclaimed in alarm.

"Fifteen, sixteen in two months. I should mention that the Turian age of physical maturity is thirteen and consent is a matter of personal choice."

Scott fell silent again, secretly wondering how best to wind up his girlfriend.

"Well what the hell am I doing here?! Time to trade in for a newer model!" he said, making an exaggerated attempted to wriggle free of his lovers embrace. Vetra squeezed him into stillness with her strong legs.

"Screw that, you're _mine_ and I told her as much." Vetra said sternly, cradling Scott's head in her hands possessively. She felt a spike of satisfaction when a familiar fire ignited behind his eyes and he tightened his grip on her in return.

"Too fucking right I am." Scott muttered as he pressed his lips to her mouth. He let her slide her long, textured tongue against his own and savoured every second. Kissing a Turian had been an odd affair at first, since for all appearances they lacked lips. Scott had learned that Turians did possess something akin to lips, they were simply hidden behind the overlapping plates of their upper and lower jaw. It was the soft, gentle touch of these lips that Scott secretly adored when Vetra would coax his tongue into her own mouth to be sucked on lovingly.

"Mmmhm...anyway, I'd say we owe her a drink or two." Vetra said, returning her head to Scott's chest.

"Roger that. I didn't know she had a boyfriend."

"Yeah, a Krogan too." Vetra said with a laugh. "He works in hydroponics. I should point out though, she has a major league crush on you. I think you're her fantasy fuck."

"Well she'll have to make do with the sordid details from her Big Sis. Let me up...I'm gonna take a shower."

Vetra untangled herself from him and watched him walk his naked self towards the bathroom. He paused at the door and turned back to her.

"You coming?" he asked with a wiggle of his eyebrows. Vetra shot from the bed and tackled him into the bathroom with glee.

They didn't emerge for quite some time.

oOo

Sid was waiting with her boyfriend beside her as Scott and Vetra made their way towards the Vortex club. The young Krogan beside her seemed a little nervous and kept adjusting his jacket and glancing at Sid. Scott recognised the body-language of infatuation and a desire to impress, and after hearing from Vetra of the young couples _activities_ , he could hardly blame the young Krogan.

Sid was indeed a beautiful example of the female Turian form, taking after her older sister in that regard. Scott knew in himself he was an odd duck for finding such an alien form so attractive, but damn him if those long, lithe legs didn't make his mouth water. Scott could briefly envision, as Vetra had joked not hours before, himself plastered between the two sisters hot, naked selves. It took all his might to bring himself back to the moment and not ruin the cut of his trousers.

"Sis! Get over here and give me a hug!" Sid called out in delight, sprinting to her sister and wrapping her arms around her. Vetra hugged her back warmly while Sid's boyfriend hovered awkwardly in the background. Scott approached him with a smile and held out his hand.

"Scott Ryder." he said with his most charming smile.

"Jorgal Vinka. It's a great honour, Pathfinder." the Krogan said, shaking Scott's hand with enthusiasm.

"I'm off duty, call me Ryder."

"What can _I_ call you?" Sid asked, tapping Scott on the shoulder. He turned to face her and noted her slightly smouldering expression; Vetra had the same look on her face from time to time, when they were alone together. Sid put her hands on his hips and pulled him close seductively. They held each other's gaze for a moment, as two lovers might, before Scott cracked a wide grin.

"How you doing, Sid?"

Sid grinned at him and embraced him warmly, bringing a chuckle from the Pathfinder.

"I'm great." Sid said. "I hear you're pretty great yourself." she added quietly in his ear.

Scott made a noise somewhere between clearing his throat and choking on his tongue, bringing peels of laughter from the young Turian.

"Leave the poor man be! Let's get inside already." Vetra said a little impatiently, slipping her hand covertly into Scott's.

"Now you're talking!" Sid cried, taking Vinka by the arm and dragging him towards the club.

"You were flirting with my sister." Vetra stated coolly as they followed on some distance behind.

"No, your sister was flirting _at_ me. I just let her. She _is_ hot though...talk about legs..."

"You're gonna pay for this later, you know that right?" Vetra asked, squeezing his hand tightly and pressing the sharp tips of her talons against his skin.

"Promises, promises."

A suitable booth was located inside the club and the group made themselves comfortable. A round of drinks was brought over with compliments of the house; Scott was always welcome after breaking up a particularly nasty brawl his first time on the Nexus. The shots went down easily and the beers were about as good as one could get, home brewed on the Nexus.

The group chatted about this and that, Vinka was introduced properly to Vetra, who naturally have him a sisterly grilling over his intentions regarding Sid. As she interrogated the poor Krogan, Sid nudged Scott and nodded towards the dance floor with a smirk. Scott was only too happy to oblige and, with a reassuring pat on Vinka's shoulder, let Sid pull him towards the dance floor. She wasted no time in placing his left arm around her waist and his right hand in her own, in what Scott recognised as an old fashioned style of dancing. It was commonly known, back in the day, as a slow dance.

"So, Mister Ryder, how are things?" Sid asked with a knowing smirk as they swayed gently together.

"Well since you ask, Miss Nyx, things are pretty damn good. The mission's coming along, I'm building bridges and kicking all sorts of ass...and I'm guessing you're more interested in my extra curricular activities." Scott said with a knowing smirk.

"Mostly I'm interested in my sisters love life, but it's your business and none of mine. I just want her to be...y'know...happy." Sid confessed with a shrug.

"Interested enough to pull my psych-eval?" Scott asked with a raised eyebrow.

"Ah...busted." Sid breathed, shaking her head at herself. "Marcus said no one would find out...I wasn't trying to pry, I really wasn't."

"I know exactly what you were doing Sid, and honestly I'm glad you did. Can't say I'm thrilled that you know my deepest and darkest, but Vetra wouldn't have come to me otherwise, so I'm grateful."

"She's so lucky to have you, if it were me I'd..." Sid suddenly stopped herself and Scott noticed the dark blush around her eyes. "...well. We should all be so lucky, y'know?"

"I think someone has a little crush on the big bad Pathfinder." Scott said with a cocky grin. Sid's blush deepened and she cast her gaze towards the floor.

"I don't wanna blow up your ego, but you _are_ very attractive." Sid said, returning her gaze to his. Something about his presence, his calming smile and open nature, made Sid feel brave. She pulled herself closer to him and draped her arms over his shoulders while his naturally fell about her waist. "And your ego might be outa' luck but, if things were different, I'd certainly love to blow _you_."

Scott stiffened for a brief moment before feeling a blush creep up his face. He never blushed. Even Vetra didn't make him blush, _he_ made _her_ blush. He cleared his throat awkwardly.

"Wow...um...did it get warm in here?" he asked with a shaky laugh.

"Relax, I'm not poaching my sister's man. You're in her heart, y'know? You'd only be in my bed. Not that I don't like you as a person, I'm just not forming attachments right now." Sid explained.

"Well, in the interest of a fair exchange..." Scott said, glancing over to Vetra, who was still grilling the Krogan. "...I think you're a beautiful young woman, Sid, inside and out. Especially out. Those legs, _damn_ girl!"

Sid giggled in a very girlish way and nudged his head playfully with hers.

"Maybe we could talk Vetra into a threesome." she suggested playfully.

"I'm at my limit with just one Nyx girl, I think the both of you would kill me. I'm sure I'd die happy but I'm not ready to bow out just yet. And truthfully Sid, I don't really think of you that way." Scott said with a chuckle. It was refreshing to be able to flirt harmlessly with someone, flirting with Vetra always lead to fun sweaty times which, while amazing, sometimes defeated the point. Not that he was complaining.

"I'm glad you spare me a thought at all. How _do_ you think about me? Please don't say _little sister_." Sid asked.

"Uh...distant relative? Someone it's totally okay to flirt with but nothing actionable." Scott explained. "Sorry."

"It's my age, right?" Sid asked bluntly.

"It's a factor. And like you said, with you I'd only exist in your bed. I'm into something more fulfilling."

"I read your file, Ryder. I _know_. I'm just enjoying your company." Sid pointed out with a happy smile. "Besides, the way Vetra tells it you're pretty _filling_ yourself. Oh look, you're blushing again."

"Fuck me, you're evil Sid." Scot said, shaking his head in despair. "And what about you're Krogan, huh? I bet he's a bit of a handful. Or maybe mouthful?"

Sid gasped softly in amused shock and faked an outraged look.

"Scott Ryder, you pervert! I'm fifteen, remember?" Sid pointed out sternly before cracking a mischievous grin. "We tried to fit it in my ass and I nearly cried."

If Scott was made of weaker stuff he might have popped a nosebleed there and then.

"Honestly it's a thing of beauty to look at, but I'm seriously considering downsizing, y'know? Maybe something in the Human range." she continued. "And I think he's getting a little clingy."

"The poor fellow. Give him tonight, at least." Scott said, glancing at the Krogan who was up at the bar ordering more drinks. Vetra was giving Scott and Sid a dose of the hairy eyeball.

"You're such a romantic, Ryder. Thanks for dancing with me." Sid said with a contented smile. Scott now noticed that the song had changed some time ago. Sid, being taller than him by a few inches, leaned her head down and pressed her forehead to his, while taking his hands in hers and entwining their fingers as best she could.

"Vetra does this, and it's nice but I don't think I understand it." Scott confessed quietly.

"It's a Turian thing. It's an expression of deep affection. Hand in hand and minds as one, this is for a close and abiding friendship. Heads in hands and hearts together, that's for love. She holds your head, right?" Sid explained with a soft smile Scott nodded, feeling the slight roughness of her plates against his skin. "You're a lucky man."

"So this is us then? Hand in hand and minds as one? Palm to palm is holy palmer's kiss?" Scott asked as they broke apart.

"That's some nice Shakespeare. Yeah, Ryder. This is us."

Scott was totally okay with that.

oOo

Vetra had gotten everything she wanted out of the Krogan; he was a charming young man, entirely enamoured with Sid and a perfect gentleman besides. Vetra felt a little sorry for him, knowing her sister as she did, for there was only heartbreak to come. Watching her lover and sister dance, as and when breaks in conversation permitted, she became keenly aware that Sid was flirting hard with Scott. Indeed, they both seemed to be flirting with each other, enjoying a back-and-forth conversation, on what she could only guess but knowing her sister it was all deeply personal. Vetra was never the jealous type, and she trusted Scott completely, but still a nag of possessive irritation tugged at her.

She'd already decided to give Scott a hard time about it, even as the two stopped dancing and Sid embraced him as a friend. It melted her heart to see her little sister and her lover bonding, like family, even if she knew the conversational nature of that bonding was a little more intimate than she would have liked.

 _"Then again..."_ Vetra thought to herself as Vinka returned with drinks and the two dancers made their way back over. _"...Sid always was the better with words."_

"You about done interrogating my boyfriend, Sis?" Sid asked, taking a seat beside Vinka and placing her hand on the Krogan's upper thigh and giving him a little squeeze as she reached for her drink. Scott didn't know Krogan's could blush.

"I am. You done trying to bed mine?" Vetra shot back with some slight irritation. Sid should really know better than to push her buttons.

"I tried but he's having none of it. And really, I just don't think of him like that. He's more like...an older cousin. Sorry, Ryder." Sid said with a knowing smirk to Scott.

"My poor heart, I fear it shall never recover. How you wound me so, you mean creature. Vetra, your sister is mean." Scott cried dramatically, turning to Vetra with a childish pout.

"Wait 'till you see where she gets it from." Vetra said menacingly over the rim of her glass. She shot Ryder a soft smile, one only he would see, to set his mind at ease. She couldn't stay mad at _him_ for Sid bringing out the worst in _her_.

"Hay, I spoke to the barman, apparently there's a karaoke contest on tonight. Starts in an hour." Vinka said, downing his ale in one fell swig. Scott felt compelled to keep up. "Apparently the place really fills up for it."

"Well, I'm game if you are, big man." Scott said with a laugh that morphed into a hearty belch. Sid giggled while Vetra recoiled.

"Oh no, I don't sing. Not sober, anyway." Vinka insisted with a shy smile. It lit the fire of inspiration in Scott, and he jumped from his seat and dashed to the bar.

"He uh...he must be thirsty." the Krogan suggested.

"Nope." Vetra explained. "He's gonna' get you shit faced and try to win the contest. I hope you brought your A game."

The drinks came thick and fast; shots and beer for the men, Turian wine for the women as per their request. Conversation became light and fluid; Scott was fascinated with Vinka's work in hydroponics and Sid wanted to hear all about their adventures from Vetra. There was some mild flirtation as the drinks sank down and somehow Scott found himself being carried bridal style to the bathroom by Vinka, much to everyone's amusement. Scott thought it a little sad that the Krogan, who was really a lovely guy, might soon find himself heartbroken. It was clear from the way he spoke how much he adored Sid, and had done since he'd laid eyes on her. Scott saw some of himself in the Krogan, if truth be told.

In a little short of an hour, and a few hundred credits later, Vinka and Scott were well past the foothills of drunk and aiming for the lofty heights of wasted. The karaoke contest was about to get underway and the club was now packed to standing-room only. Fifty contestants had signed up for the show, and many more who wanted to sing but not compete. The contest, opened to much applause by the Asari proprietor, began with a pair of Turians. Scott, for the life of him, couldn't understand a word they came out with, but he enjoyed their enthusiasm.

Contestants came and went; some really rather good, some too drunk to find the stage, until the host finally called for Ryder to make his way to the stage. Scott game Vetra a quick kiss and winked at her with that sly, mischievous grin he always wore whenever he was about to do something stupid. The crowd applauded and cheered him up to the stage where, after making his selection at the console, he approached the microphone and surveyed the crowd.

His musical choice opened with a soft piano melody that stilled the crowd. Perhaps it was the lighting, or simply Scott's own presence, but everyone in the club was watching him, and Vetra couldn't help but notice, he was watching only her. Then he started singing.

"Look _into my eyes, you will see...what you mean too me."_

Light applause rippled through the crowd. Scott could sing, there was no doubt. He didn't have a classically clear, strong singing voice, it was rough but light at the same time. He held the vintage microphone on its stand in one hand while his other tucked casually into his pocket, and appeared totally at ease on the stage, and even with all eyes on him, his never left Vetra.

" _Don't tell me it's not worth trying for. You can't tell me it's not worth dying for…"_

Sid leaned across to her sister with an awestruck look on her face.

"With no exaggeration Sis, your man is the hottest thing walking right now." she said quietly.

"He's definitely...something." Vetra replied, only half concentrating on her sister. Her attention was entirely elsewhere.

" _Everything I do...I do it for you."_

Vetra had that feeling that they were the only two in the room right then. Even when the room burst into applause as the music took it up a notch, she couldn't help but feel Scott was trying to tell her something, in a very unsubtle way.

Suffice to say, Scott was a hit with the crowd. By the song's end couples were dancing all around the club, others singing along with gusto, and more than a few lonely souls were keeping the bar propped up, lamenting their loneliness. A standing ovation was given as the last notes of the backing track faded out and Ryder took a bow. He stepped down from the stage and made his way back to the table, accepting handshakes and slaps on the back from the other patrons, and plopped himself down beside Vetra and took up his drink.

"Thirsty work." he said with a sideways grin as his took a swig of his beer. "So, how bad was it?

"You were good, actually. Really good." Vetra said warmly. She slid herself close to Scott, slid her arm around him and rested her chin on his shoulder. "You never stop surprising me, Scott Ryder."

"Hay nice work, Ryder!" Vinka called from across the table, he himself up for a crack at the title shortly. "Great song too!"

"It's a total chick magnet, man! You should try it!" Scott called back with a chuckle.

"No thanks, I'm gonna get my _Marley_ on!" Vinka boomed over his beer.

"Wait, _Bob_ Marley? You're a Marley fan?" Scott asked with surprise.

"I'm a Botanist, what do you think I _do_ in my spare time?"

"Uh...Sid?" Scott ventured. Vetra nudged him sharply to make her disapproval known.

"Well uh...yeah! But y'know...Botany, Marley... _plants_ man!" Vinka explained vaguely. After a moment the penny dropped.

"You grow pot?!" Scott asked, aghast.

"For the Medical Wing, sure. It's all above board, I just like to mix things up in my spare time, y'know? I grow the best Blueberry Stardream in Andromeda." Vinka boasted in a not-so-hushed tone.

"Oh man, I could tell you stories…" Scott started, but got cut short by Vetra nudging him hard in the ribs. "Ah...but another time. Who's for another drink?"

"I'm up in a minute." Vinka said, nodding his head towards the stage. "Wish me luck."

oOo

Vinka bombed. Without a doubt, his performance all but ripped the roof off the club and by the end of _One Love_ even the most morbidly dour patrons were smiling, swaying along to the mellow Jamaican vibes. Scott watched on in awe of the Krogan; not only was his performance pitch-perfect but the hulking botanist managed to capture the spirit of the song and delivered it to everyone, like a gift-wrapped present. Sid, Scott noticed, was more than impressed.

When Vinka returned from the stage, he did so with a gaggle of admirers and well-wishers. Many among them were female, and Scott couldn't help but smirk at the Krogan's apparent unease with such attentions. Sid, for her part, made her disapproval of the fawning females known. Complimentary drinks were handed around, purchased by patrons particularly moved by the Marley maestro, and the group settled in for the remainder of the evening.

It came as no surprise when, at the end of the contest, Scott and Vinka were awarded joint first place. To great applause the made their way to the stage and accepted their award, a trophy and year-long VIP perks, and Vinka said a few words of thanks and brought the competition to a close. The clubs regular soundtrack resumed, and everyone got back into the upbeat swing of things. Scott, however, was feeling a bit past his best. It was the early hours of the morning, after all.

"I have to say, this has been a blast. I think I'm gonna' bug out though, I'm feeling my age." Scott announced, thinking longingly of his bed and Vetra's soft, sleeping breath on his shoulder.

"I second this notion! I wanna' get this one home." Sid said of Vinka with a purr. Since his performance she had been noticeably affectionate towards the Krogan.

"Something tells me you're not the only one with that plan." Scott pointed out, eyeing the various ladies of the club who all had eyes for Vinka.

"They'll have to go through me first." Sid growled.

"Bitches be crazy…" Scott muttered to his new Krogan friend.

"I know, groupies, right?" Vinka chuckled back. Sid was not amused.

"Oh, _groupies_ is it? Right, out of this club Mister, you're in trouble." Sid demanded, taking Vinka by the arm and hauling him from his seat and in the direction of the exit. Scott suddenly found himself being hauled in the same direction.

"You too, drunk man." Vetra snapped at him.

"Hay, where's the fire?" Scott asked, lamenting the loss of his half-finished pint.

"In my pants, that good enough for you?" Vetra hissed into his ear. Scott became all business-like very quickly.

"Well _shit,_ let's not wait for the grass to grow! Lead on." he said, straightening his shirt.

The group parted ways outside the club, with much hugging, back slapping and even a friendly kiss from Sid to Scott. Vinka slipped Scott a small object, a sealed capsule about the size of a pen, with a wink and a nudge, before departing with Sid. Scott and Vetra walked back to their apartment hand in hand.

"That was...an amazing night." Scott said from where he lay, shirtless and shoeless on his bed. Vetra stripped out of her outfit and joined him.

"I didn't know you could sing like that." she said, curling up next to him.

"I had a few lessons as a kid, I didn't think it stuck though." he explained.

"What did Vinka give you?"

"I'm guessing a sample of his Blueberry Stardream. You wanna' blaze up with me?"

"No. I'm too mad at you for attracting a load of other women. I don't like it."

"Are you jealous, Vetra?" Scott asked with a toying smirk.

"Yes. I'm a possessive, jealous woman, and it's all your fault."

"Oh, how so?"

Vetra sighed to herself and pulled the covered over them both, wrapping her man in her arms and settling her head beside his.

"If you weren't so damn perfect I never would have fallen in love with you. And I have, Scott. I'm in love with you."

No more words were uttered, there was nothing more to be said. They fell asleep in each other's arms, and although Scott knew Vetra didn't need to hear the words from him, he'd make damn sure she knew, one way or the other, the feeling was more than mutual.

oOo

AN: Written with creative direction from Lunar Silver.

Sorry it took so long, hang in there there's more to come. Maybe some revisions too. We'll see.

Toodles. xx


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